


Sons of the Imperium

by beetle



Series: Sons of the Imperium [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Lavellan, Angst, Atheist Character, Awkwardness, Banter, Betrayal, But Cole was right, But once he was just a kid with no one and nothing, Debauchery, Dorian Pavus Has Issues, Dorian is trying to hit rock bottom, Dorivellan - Freeform, Drunken Dorian, Dubcon Cuddling, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Burnout, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enter Dorian Pavus, Exhibitionism, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Love, First Meetings, First Time, Friendship/Love, Giant Spiders, Grief/Mourning, He has no reason to say yes to Dorian's unasked question, He just might get to say yes after all, He would've said yes anyway, Hedonism, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Inquisitor Backstory, Jealousy, Kidnapping, Lavellan Backstory, Lies, Loss, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Non-Andrastian Inquisitor, Non-Consensual Magical Restraint, Opposites Attract, POV Lavellan, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Poverty, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Pre-Love Triangle, Pre-Slash, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rilienus already owns a summer-home there, Rilienus has lost everything he's ever loved, Rilienus is a Hunter, Rilienus is a man for all occasions, Rilienus is a spy, Rilienus is a thief, Rilienus is an assassin, Romance, Slavery, Smut, Solavellan, Suicide Attempt, Temple of Sacred Ashes, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Tevinter Imperium, Tevinter Inquisitor, The Conclave, Trauma, Trust Issues, Unconventional Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism, anhedonia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-01-09 01:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Dorian: That little trick, Cole, when you dip into someone's mind and take a drink?Dorian: Do you choose what you're looking for, or is it random?Cole: It has to be hurt, or a way to help the hurt. That's what calls me.Cole: Rilienus, skin tan like fine whiskey, cheekbones shaded, lips curl when he smiles.Cole: He would have said yes.Dorian: I'll... thank you not to do that again, please.—Dragon Age: InquisitionOR: What if, in the years before and since his association with Dorian Pavus, “Rilienus” went through a few other incarnations, as well? The final ones being, of course,Herald of AndrasteandInquisitor. What will happen when the star-crossed pair meet again during the rise of the Inquisition? How will Thedas react to an elf-blooded Inquisitor from the Tevinter Imperium? And will true love triumph over everything, even when nothing less thaneverythingis at stake?As of 04.29.2018:The next fic in the Sons of the Imperium series should be up by05.06.2018, if not sooner.





	1. Prologue: From Sacred Ashes Risen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts), [thewickedkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewickedkat/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: AU Lavellan-backstory. Eventual mentions of blood-magic and attempted mind-control. Full prompt in end notes. Will add warnings as chapters merit them. No plans for non-con or graphic violence, nor major character death. Eventual non-consensual restraint by magical means. Relevant warnings in individual chapter notes, as well as tags.
> 
>  **As of 04.29.2018:** The next fic in the Sons of the Imperium series should be up by **05.06.2018** , if not sooner. It's a one-shot interlude, but a necessary one, and it needed to be told before I started on the next chaptered fic, "The Gathering Storm." Thanks for your patience and continued interest, friends and readers. Thanks for sticking with this series and with me. ICE CREAM FOR EVERYONE!!!!!

 

 

****

* * *

 

**Prologue: From Sacred Ashes Risen**

 

In the aftermath of the explosion, dazed, injured, and unable to hear anything over the rabbiting, irregular tattoo of his own heart and the dinning silence caused by the concussive blast, Mahanon Lavellan staggered through the dust, smoke, darkness, and chaos of the Divine Conclave, toward the only thing that made sense anymore.

 

 _Light_.

 

It was green and golden at the same time, like the memory of his mother’s eyes. Warm and gentle and calling to him.

 

Despite the pain of his injuries and his desire to sit still until this unaccustomed disorientation lifted, Mahanon struggled on toward that maternal light. The only thought that stood out in the buzzing hive of his confusion and fear, was a single understanding:

 

 _There is healing and redemption, there._ Safety _and the means to maintain it._

 

In the face of this revelation, there was nothing for it but to keep moving ahead. To let the strengthening and intensifying of that mother-bright light draw him on, even as blood ran into his eyes and his left leg threatened to give out. He knew nothing beyond his determination to _get there_.

 

After an interminable time spent limping and listing toward the light, he managed to wipe and blink away the worst of the blood—likely from a shallow, but clearly gushing head-wound—then noticed a distant, curving stair. Broken and narrow, it lead directly into the source of that green-gold salvation, in the midst of which stood the figure of a woman.

 

This gave him pause. Not from exhaustion, pain, or fear—though he certainly felt the first two quite keenly—but from awe.

 

“Mama,” he coughed through a throat full of smoke and gravel, his low voice dropped into a hoarse, chuffing grunt. He blinked even more, unsure not of the light, but of the mad certainty that his mother waited ahead.

 

For _Mahanon Lavellan_ had no mother. No, nor sister nor brother. Never had. He had only his Clan and Keeper. But, a long time ago in an Imperium far, far away—though, still, never far _enough_ —a boy called Vulpo Helvius had had a _mother, sister, and brother._ A _family_.

 

Only to lose them one by one to illness, in his mother’s case. Then the slave auctions, in his sister’s. And, finally, ascension from the ranks of destitute, struggling _liberati_ to the palaces of the privileged, in his brother's.

 

 _Vulpo_ had lost everyone that’d ever mattered to him in just under two years. Before his sixteenth birthday, he had given up on all his tentative hopes of _better_ and _more_ and _safety_ . . . seen them dashed with negligent indifference on the night his probable-father had come to claim the son he’d somehow found out was possessed of magical ability.

 

The son who was _not_ Vulpo. . . .

 

Reeling in this uncontrollable tide of fly-away emotion-memories—corralling the heart that never seemed to heal, only get ground down into a finer powder—Mahanon stumbled forward again, picking his way over and around rubble, until he stood at the base of the stair.

 

Several steps into his shaky ascent, he shuddered, a cold feeling dancing up and down his spine. Despite his dizziness, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a sight which would haunt him to his dying day, assuming that wasn’t this one.

 

 _By the Dread Wolf_ , Mahanon thought, barking a brief laugh, high and hysterical, as _they_ scuttled toward him—thankfully _not_ leaping, at which their kind was rumored to excel.

 

No, these spiders, easily the size of prize oxen, moved with earth-bound alacrity. Focused on and assured of their meals, they kept to the detritus-littered ground, some stopping to feast upon the countless corpses of those felled in the initial blast. Some dozens, however, seemed to have their sights set on slightly fresher meat, and raced toward Mahanon like a river of vileness, incarnate.

 

Their hides were brittle-pale in the iffy, diffuse light cast by Mahanon’s presumptive savior . . . hard and chitinous-looking, like a beetle’s carapace. This armored covering seemed to extend not only across the entirety of the Maker-forsaken abominations, but to protect their long, spindly legs, as well. Clusters of avid, dark, far too intelligent eyes glittered and hungered at Mahanon from above cruel, pincered maws.

 

It was this final detail that saw Mahanon take to his heels again, turning toward light and hope and anything that _wasn’t_ the Fade-corrupted nightmares closing in on him, and instilling waves of atavistic terror in advance.

 

Facing forward once more, desperate and certain of his own doom should he hesitate any longer, he cudgeled his near-useless left leg into bearing him up and on, and keeping up with his right leg. It was painful enough to make Mahanon, the most stoic, ruthless Hunter and spy of the Lavellan Clan, gulp in hissing breaths and pant out choked-off whimper-grunts, though he was used to far worse. And certainly _nothing_ could be worse than death in the jaws of the hungry horrors on his heels.

 

He climbed and eventually scrambled up the jagged incline, away from the Fade-touched, ravening giant spiders and toward the green-gold light and the lady it surrounded. The light that emanated from her was so bright, her features were obscured, but it was obvious she represented some form of protection from or even just a decent place in which to make a stand against the damned spiders.

 

And certainly, Mahanon had grasped at smaller, frailer straws in his varied and multi-faceted life than a glowing mother-woman who felt like safety and hope.

 

As he neared the top of the broken stone stair, he reached out to her at the same time her illuminated hand was extended to him. With a final lunge for her mercy and his own life, Mahanon Lavellan clasped her slim, tapering hand in his square, nimble-fingered one and was tugged forward— _pulled_ —to salvation. At her electrifying, burning-freezing touch, he cried out in extremis. His last thoughts, such as they were, before the world exploded _again_ , were not of the family he’d lost so long ago, nor the Clan and Keeper who’d given his chaotic life shape and meaning once again. Nor even that he would be leaving both behind without their most effective Hunter and ablest spy.

 

No, his _very_ last thoughts were of lively-lovely gray eyes that’d seemed to _glow_ in hearth-fire and even in the flicker of dying candlelight. Of a dazzling, impish smile that’d promised many things. Some sundry of them had been deliciously, _breathtakingly_ wicked and many more, still, were far closer to sweet and fond. In some moments, those beautiful eyes had brimmed with endless faith and trust . . . which Vulpo Helvius had forgotten how to accept and Vel Rilienus had never learned.

 

Mahanon thought of those pouty perfect lips and the way fine lines around those magnetic, stormy eyes would crinkle when Filius Septimus—surely as assumed a name as Vel’s own—smiled at him, bright and pleased and affectionate. Even when the other man _hadn’t_ been tipsy off his impossibly divine arse (and such nights had been rarer than hen’s teeth).

 

In his final moments of life, Mahanon Lavellan—once Vel Rilienus, once Vulpo Helvius, as well as many other people in between and as needed—held his collage of memories pertaining to Filius in his mind’s eye and the heart of his heart. With regret and despair, he thought, as if _anyone_ might be listening: _If_ you’d _asked me, Filius . . . I’d have said_ yes. _I’d have shouted it with every fiber of my being until the dome of the sky cracked and fell down. If you’d asked, I would have said_ yes _._

 

And, so thinking, he chuffed wheezing, agonized laughter. He had no idea what his normally pragmatic, but recently knocked-around mind was on about, but as last thoughts went, it could’ve been far worse, he supposed.

 

 _If I die tonight, then let me die with Filius’ face in my head and in my heart. Let me slip away into the Fade, or Eternity or Oblivion—_ whatever _waits—holding fast to my memories of the last person I ever loved. Let me—_

 

Then the world burst into pure light that rose from green-gold, to pure white . . . before it faded to a restful, safe darkness like worn, night-kissed velvet. That darkness caught Mahanon, lifted him up, and set him gently down, never once letting him go. It kept and soothed him . . . _comforted him_ in a way he hadn’t been since he was very small.

 

In the arms of that darkness, there was no more pain, no more sadness, no more _loneliness_ —no more _anything_ , but the quick, arrhythmic beat of his own weary heart and the stubborn, unfading echo of the explosion that’d demolished the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

 

And so, Mahanon didn’t hear the confounded, cheated chitters and angry gabble of the thwarted spiders behind him. Not over the frantic rush-throb of his life’s-blood and the lingering **BOOM** in his ears. Not over Filius’ eyes and smile, and not over his own deep and crushing regrets.

 

Over _those_ constants, he could and would hear nothing at all for quite some time.

 

TBC


	2. The Unlamented Death of Vulpo Helvius; the Brutal Forging of Vel Rilienus; and the Divine Purpose of Mahanon Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As long as he was afloat, rather than always drowning, like that _other_ boy—the sad-boy, the vulnerable-boy, the defenseless-prey-boy—had been, Vel Rilienus was content to remain where he was and as he was. He had almost nothing in the way of sensibility or conscience to keep him awake at night, and his nightmares, when he had them, belonged to another boy, entirely.
> 
> One who sometimes forgot he was as dead as all the silly, soft things he’d ever dreamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: AU Lavellan-backstory. Eventual mentions of blood-magic and attempted mind-control. Full prompt in end notes. Will add warnings as chapters merit them. No plans for non-con or graphic violence, nor major character death.

 

It was more than half a year after Baltasaro Leontius had come to claim _one_ of his bastard, elf-blooded sons, that Vulpo Helvius realized he, himself, had been dead the entire time since Meo left.

 

This realization was . . . unexpected. As unexpected as seeing Meo across the bustling, busy Central Plaza. For when Magister Leontius had ushered his younger son off to the Leontius estate outside Perivantium, Vulpo had simply assumed he’d never again lay eyes on his little brother. But this day had proven him wrong.

 

Rather . . . it had shown Vulpo the grim, cold-eyed _Leontius-scion_ who was all that remained of the precious, _precocious_ child who’d been all bright smiles and playful heart despite the bare, struggling ten years of his existence. The child who’d meant _everything_ to the sweet, sad sister who’d sacrificed her freedom for him—to give _him and Vulpo a better chance_ —and the brother who’d done his best to raise and take care of that child in the two years since her voluntary enslavement.

 

No . . . the child across the square, _Caristanus Leontius_ , bore only a passing resemblance to _Meo Helvius_. Where Meo had always put Vulpo in mind of their mother, and of the way she’d always seemed to _shine_ , Caristanus was, with his saturnine, watchful stillness, every inch their father’s son. Never mind the ruthlessly-tamed, fiery curls and slim, elegant grace passed down from Thessalia Helvius, _Caristanus_ was the very image of a Leontius-scion.

 

Despite the numbness of the six months prior, seeing . . . the Leontius-scion even from across the crowded plaza, at his father’s side and surrounded by Leontius hirelings and guards, Vulpo had frozen. He’d been caught in despair and loneliness so gnawing and agonizing, and for so long, that by the time it was in him to move once more, the Leontius entourage had moved on. Their finery and disdain had easily parted the mostly- _soporati_ and _liberati_ crowd like a molten blade through butter.

 

When he could rely upon his legs to not dump him face-first on the cobblestones, Vulpo had stumbled, mute and blank, back to his tiny rent-room and his many bottles of rotgut swill. Both room and rotgut he’d paid for with the odd bit of scut-work and the leftover money from Ateia’s sale-price. It wasn’t as if he’d be needing it to send Meo to school any longer. To purchase clothes that _wouldn’t_ get him mocked and bullied, and purchase books and tutoring that would give him an edge. A chance at the life Ateia and Vulpo would never get.

 

Blinking burning-aching-dry eyes at his sagging ceiling, Vulpo drank his swill until he passed out on his pallet. Then woke only to repeat that pattern for two days until his body grew weak and ill from so much rotgut and so little food.

 

It wasn’t until his landlady, a shrill, grasping _liberati_ , had let herself into his room to demand her rent that Vulpo had finally admitted something to himself.

 

He was dead. Had been since he'd lost the last of his family. For what was a person _without_ their family? Without a single person who _mattered_ or a purpose for which to live?

 

Nothing. Dead. A ghost.

 

As his landlady hurled invective at him, the boy who’d been Vulpo Helvius had somehow managed to lever his sickly, gaunt frame to its feet. It’d been the work of nearly ten minutes to gather his meager belongings in the worn duffel that’d come with his mother’s father all the way from the Free Marches decades ago. He’d had little worth taking: two changes of clothing; some eating utensils; a set of rusty throwing daggers that he’d been getting good with before their father had come to claim Meo; a few of his sister’s lovely wooden carvings and tiny stone figurines that she hadn’t sold to keep food in their bellies after Thessalia’s passing; and the June-puzzle and matched pair of gleaming, Dalish blades that were all that remained of his maternal grandfather’s, Mahanon Lavellan’s, possessions.

 

And, of course, the remainder of Ateia’s sale-price, hidden, as it was, under a floorboard in the room’s single, narrow closet.

 

The rotgut, what little he hadn’t consumed, he left behind. His landlady was still haranguing him at volume when he left the residence for keeps.

 

Two months later, having wandered all the way up the Imperial Highway, eating little and sleeping less—caught in a detached haze of fading, self-indulgent despair that eventually became crystallized, ruthless clarity, he fetched up on the fringes of the Imperial Capitol.

 

On his arrival in Minrathous, it wasn’t difficult to find another week-by-week rooming-house with an available single room. It cost a little less than half his remaining funds, shabby and spare though the establishment was. But it was, at least, cleaner than he would’ve expected. The landlady and her husband, genial, elderly _soporati_ , took him for the same and tutted over his drawn, bedraggled state. The landlady ushered him up to a single room, sat him on the narrow bed, and ordered him to stay put. That supper would be brought up. At that point, the boy who’d once been Vulpo Helvius saw no gain in doing otherwise, so put he stayed, blinking around him at the worn, bare room and its four pieces of furniture. Finally, he shrugged, shoved his duffel to the floor, kicked off his falling-apart boots, and laid down on the threadbare coverlet. He didn’t care about his surroundings, so long as he wasn’t likely to wake up with flea and/or rat bites, and cockroaches in his hair.

 

By the time the elderly landlady’s serving girl knocked with supper—a stew that was thickened mostly with potatoes; a large, chewy end of dark bread; and vinegar that was masquerading as wine—her newest tenant, one _Vel Rilienus_ , was deeply asleep. And he’d remain so for the next three days.

 

Upon waking, still clear of mind and purpose, and empty of everything else, Vel Rilienus set to orienting and familiarizing himself with the largest and oldest city in Thedas. Once he had his bearings and a grasp of the predictable, almost lazy power-structure of his sprawling, destitute sector of the city, he almost immediately began building the foundation of his new life. And he built it out of cut purses and cut throats. On the rending of flesh and the breaking of bone. In the ruthless, but businesslike carnage, and abattoir-silence that lingered wherever he had.

 

Where Vulpo Helvius had been prey since his birth, Vel Rilienus was born a predator, instinctively lacking in mercy or hesitation, or any extraneous emotion, and unnecessary wants and hopes. In a kill-or-be-killed city like Minrathous, such an unflinching and utilitarian world-view was sometimes integral to one’s survival, let alone one’s prosperity. Self-sufficiency and self-preservation were all that drove Rilienus. Those were his default modes and settings. As long as he was afloat, rather than always drowning, like that _other_ -boy—the sad-boy, the vulnerable-boy, the helpless-prey-boy—had been, Vel was content to remain where he was and as he was.

 

He had almost nothing in the way of sensibility or conscience to keep him awake at night, and his nightmares, when he had them, belonged to another boy, entirely.

 

One who sometimes forgot he was as dead as all the silly, soft things he’d ever dreamed.

 

Upon waking from these dreams, Vel sometimes didn’t sleep for several days after, preferring, instead, to indulge in the many ways of survival he’d proven astoundingly good at. The name he built for himself was due, in large part, to the very beginning of his tenure in Minrathous. To the brittle, restless days following past life-nightmares. He’d go from job to job with no down-time—unlike many of his colleagues in the business of taking property and lives, Vel didn’t require the suspect sweetness of nights of debauchery to wash the taste of his livelihood out of his mouth—between cased townhouse, bulging pocket, or unprotected throat.

 

The money he was able to save from these jobs he no longer stored under a floorboard in a closet, but sewn into the added inner lining of his grandfather’s duffel. Said duffel often lay like forgotten trash in a corner of his room. Vel knew that his landlady’s serving girl, Ciceria, tended to snoop through his things when he wasn’t present . . . which was most of the time, especially in the beginning. But he never left without setting up his sparse surroundings with tells that’d reveal whether or not anything had been disturbed.

 

In the _beginning_ . . . things almost always were. But never the discarded pile of grey-dun cloth left like an afterthought in the corner. Never the duffel. (Which worked out well for both Vel and the serving girl, since the former preferred not to kill unless on a job, and the latter probably had no interest in dying horribly.)

 

But by the end of a year in Minrathous, Vel Rilienus’ reputation was solidly made: he was considered one of the best and most fairly-priced, Jack-of-all-trades criminals in his rather seedy sector. Not yet one of the best in the _city_. Yet. Though, considering the sort of work it took for such apex-predators to stay alive, let alone keep their reputations and keep making money, Vel had little interest in being one. He was content to be a particularly vicious piranha in a medium-sized koi pond.

 

 _By the end of a year in Minrathous_ —and two months after what would have been Vulpo Helvius’ seventeenth birthday—Vel Rilienus was more or less afloat. More or less.

 

And there was very little he _wouldn’t_ do—and hadn’t done—to remain that way.

 

#

 

Mahanon Lavellan pried open his blood-crusted lashes with effort that cost him in easily bearable discomfort and a few grunting groans.

 

When he’d managed to blink away the haze of his persistently-trebled vision, he surveyed himself painstakingly: his eyesight was blurry and dodgy; his hearing still rang faintly, the sound of the explosion a background roar in his _shem_ -like ears; he was slumped forward in a listing, limp heap, his entire body lax and sore, but slowly tensing as he came more fully to his senses. _All_ of him hurt and all of him _stank_ of blood, sweat, dust, and singed wool.

 

Just as he gained some small measure of quite alarmed cogency, with that clarity came the straggling, struggling memories of why he should be so injured and filthy and . . . incarcerated, if his dim, cell-like environs weren't a mirage.

 

The Divine Conclave. The explosion.

 

 _The Light and the Lady . . . and the spiders. And also. . . ._ there, Mahanon let his recall trail away into old grief and hurt. Let the remembered flash of mesmerizing eyes fade into red-black darkness before he once more opened his own aching eyes.

 

After several seconds to ground and master himself as best he could, he took in what little of his surroundings he could make out in the dim, murksome light without shifting his eyes or turning his head.

 

Damp, grey-brown stone, relatively clean, enclosed the largish space that Mahanon knew from experience was definitely a cell. And he was the only one being kept in it, which was either very _promising_ , or _very_ . . . not.

 

At any rate, it was difficult to think clearly or more practically, between the aching of his head and leg—both of which were actually not as bad as he sensed they should have been—and his lingering disorientation. He moved to lift his right hand up to his aching head, only to discover his wrists were bound in heavy, iron shackles connected by a thick spreader bar. His right hand was numb and cold, but his left was tingling and over-warm.

 

Closing his leaden lids on burning-dry eyes as he coughed, he was startled by familiar green-gold light on the backs of those lids. By a pale, kind hand reaching out with both urgency and a promise of safety and aid. That hand and that light waited for him— _had been waiting_ for him—just beyond each slow, involuntary blink. There was cold and agony and a _burden_ in that light, yes. A terrible burden from which he could never be got free. But there’d been warmth, too. Comfort. Hope. _Purpose_ beyond mere survival, either his own or his Clan’s, or even the Dalish as a people.

 

In that light, there’d been salvation for all of Thedas.

 

In that light . . . had been the fate of a world and all the beings in it. The hand that had been extended to him had been a gauntlet dropped. And even though Mahanon could only vaguely remember the events before unconsciousness had claimed him, he knew that he’d accepted that hand. Taken up that gauntlet.

 

He would be _Her_ standard bearer until all his days of bearing were at last done.

 

Just after he’d accepted a responsibility and purpose of which he had almost no real understanding, but before that light had exploded then settled into sweet, safe darkness and unknowing, Mahanon remembered that he’d thought of brilliant gray eyes in a handsome, aristocratic face. Of a clever, amused smile and the air of fondness that’d attended it, whenever eyes and smile had landed on Vel Rilienus.

 

The fate of a world, yes, and all the beings in it, perhaps, were now his charge. But Mahanon had picked up that gauntlet for only one of those beings, among the millions. The world he now cared for in nascent, unfamiliar pangs was not a world he wanted to protect for himself or his Clan or the People. At least not only. Not even _mostly_.

 

It was a world he meant to protect and secure for those lovely eyes and that glowing smile. For the only man who’d ever made the heart Vel Rilienus had never had beat faster . . . made it twist and ache in his chest.

 

There was something very wrong with Thedas. Very wrong, indeed. And Mahanon had the unshakable feeling that he could, in some way . . . mitigate that wrong. If that was the case, then he would do his best. Not for his own survival—in the years since the Rilienus-identity had lost its usefulness, the survival of the identities he’d assumed _after_ that, even the Lavellan one, had been a matter of almost academic pursuit . . . more reflex than not—nor for the survival of those who’d come to depend on him.

 

He would do his best for _Filius Septimus_.

 

Even while wearing the Lavellan-identity, he’d found it difficult to actively care about anything beyond maintaining just enough usefulness to the people on Thedas he found most palatable by far. Without his usefulness to his grandfather’s Clan, Mahanon knew that his life and meaning would be used-up. That he would cease to matter at all to others and to himself. Duty was the only thing, these days, that kept him from ending the miserable messes that’d passed for his lives since. . . .

 

Now, however, he suddenly had another reason. One that was impossible to ignore or except or skive-off.

 

He would save this world, if he could. Protect it from whatever horrors had been unleashed upon it by magic and the Fade. And he would do so for _Filius Septimus_ , wherever he was, assuming he still lived.

 

The thought of the other man perhaps living out his life in safety and comfort, in a world free of demonic horrors—such as the giant spiders the explosion at the Conclave had released—made the long-absent, burning-twisting ache start up in his chest. It was fierce and bittersweet, longing and agonizing . . . as intense as if it hadn’t been seven years since Filius had disappeared from Minrathous. That ache demanded no less of him than dedicating whatever was left of _Mahanon Lavellan’s_ life to this one shining purpose: ensure the greatest possibility of security and even _happiness_ for Filius’ life in the only way left to him.

 

This, then, was the only _true_ point left to his life and the one uncompromisable cause set before him.

 

 _First things first, however_ , he thought with laconic detachment, glancing down at his shackled hands and sluggishly cogitating on how to get at the lock-picks he hopefully still had hidden in his right boot. But he was almost instantly distracted from his first genuinely relevant concern since waking. For, though it’d been tingling a bit since he’d regained consciousness, his left palm now seemed to be white-hot. Freezing-tingling- _burning_.

 

He flexed his shaking, dusty-bloody left hand, noting the minute and unusual tremor in his talented, tapering fingers. Upon slowly turning his aching-thrumming hand over, he stared at his wide, flat, grimy—but for a roughly circular clean-patch in the center—palm for a few seconds.

 

The memory of _Her_ touch—the Lady’s touch—and Her _light_ filled his mind.

 

Before he could even close his eyes to focus more intently on this clear memory in the dark morass of his discombobulated and stunned mind, there was a sharp jolt and heated flare in his palm, in the same spot as that incongruously clean patch.

 

And for a moment, instead of the ruddy, work-roughened bit of pale he was used to seeing, that clean spot seemed to glow bright green-gold, like the Lady’s light. Like his mother’s eyes. Like the memory of hope.

 

The glow flared up just like the heat that’d heralded its arrival, crackling and kinetic. Uncomprehending and shocked, Mahanon gasped and blinked, cursing himself sluggishly even as his eyelids fluttered shut. And, true to expectations, by the time they reopened, both glow and jolt were gone as if they’d never been.

 

And who was to say they had? Mahanon had, after all, sustained a considerable head-injury. Who was to say everything he remembered after the explosion, from spiders to salvation, wasn’t wound-wrought madness?

 

Fingers curling automatically into a protective fist, Mahanon realized he was panting and tried to slow his breathing. Before he managed that neat trick, there was a sound to his right. Keys in a lock. In _locks_. And in a few moments, the door to his cell swung open with a groaning creak.

 

Several soldiers marched in, armed and armored, taking positions around Mahanon seemingly in the blink of an eye. In the doorway behind them, the dramatic silhouette of a woman paused, back-lit by torchlight. But only for a moment, before she stalked into the cell, assured and angry. By the dim light of the cell, she was slightly taller than average for a woman, with short, dark hair and pale, fierce eyes. Her face was scarred, but classically heroic, in a typically Nevarran way. She seemed fearless and determined, and this instant impression of her put Mahanon in mind of his Keeper, though Deshanna was no soldier, and this woman clearly was a very accomplished one.

 

After her, almost beneath even Mahanon’s normally-keen notice, was another woman, fair-featured and pretty, and armored to a fare-thee-well in flexible mail. Her face was unreadable, for all its inoffensive comeliness, and pleasantly reassuring in a way that Mahanon knew meant absolutely nothing.

 

Here was a woman who, like him, had worn so many faces, no single face had _ever_ meant anything more than what it meant in _that_ moment.

 

Meeting her sea-blue eyes, Mahanon dredged up a meaningless smile of his own, both jaunty and flat. Meanwhile, the other woman had ceased her stalking directly behind Mahanon, and leaned in close to him. So close, that every hair on his body stood on end from the proximity of another capable predator. She smelled exactly like the soldier he’d taken her for: of leather and steel, sweat and horse. Like blood, too. Faintly, and in a way that no amount of bathing would ever truly get rid of.

 

Mahanon, himself, carried that blood-scent, as well, and had since he was sixteen. He couldn’t remember what it was to _not_ smell of copper and intrigue. And of capricious, near-indiscriminate death . . . death given miserable, relentless incarnation.

 

When the blood-scented woman spoke, her voice was cold and ringing. But her breath was hot and controlled on his chilled ear and cheek. “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

 

TBC


	3. "Seventh Son"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was one thing Vel Rilienus was good at, it was keeping his head when surprised then tackling the unexpected head-on. Adaptation and rolling with changes was paramount to his _survival_ , not just his chosen livelihood. So, when a pretty, mouthy, high-born drunkard spot-hired him to help keep off some persistent enforcers—presumably contracted by _independent financiers_ to settle an outstanding debt—Vel simply shrugged and went to work. Because all that mattered was keeping afloat, by hook or by crook. Getting _paid_ and _getting away with it_.
> 
> (That Vel’s client, the pretty, high-born drunk, was _impossibly_ attractive and drew Vel’s irritatingly fixated gaze and attention, was . . . neither here nor there.)
> 
> And if the enforcers or creditors got in the way of Vel’s survival—or his client’s—Vel would pause his restless, relentless momentum for just long enough to solve the problem permanently. He would _adapt_ , with his usual, coldblooded efficacy. Thence continue paddling for his life until even _he_ eventually went under for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: AU Lavellan-backstory. Eventual mentions of blood-magic and attempted mind-control. Full prompt in end notes. Will add warnings as chapters merit them. No plans for non-con or graphic violence, nor major character death.
> 
> Now, _mit_ sporadic chapter artz!

****  


* * *

 

**Chapter Two: “Seventh Son”**

 

Unlike that  _other_  boy—the sad, pathetic, stuffed-down one who hid in a corner of Vel Rilienus’ unformed heart—Vel did not drink.

 

Because of that, he tended to stand out in public houses, which he only frequented for purposes of employment, negotiation, and payment. But the sorts of pubs at which he met clients were the kinds of places where one did not drink anything that wasn’t boiled or fermented. And Vel didn’t trust any food or drink he hadn’t prepared himself, or at least seen prepared. The one exception was, of course, the food prepared by _Serah_ Carolus, his landlady. And after eighteen months of being her tenant, she knew to never send his food to his room with any other servant than the nosy, though apparently not thieving Ciceria.

 

Now, as Vel sat at the long, damp counter of  _The Three Dog Night_ —his back up and tense . . . wary of being in such a conspicuous spot, when his every instinct urged him to seek out a corner or wall at which to place his back and have a good view of the exits—he frowned down at his nimble, large, grubby right hand and fingers. There was old blood under the nails, but no dirt. Both fingers and palms had calluses in uncommon places.

 

His left hand was quickly walking three different coins in two different directions over his bony-prominent knuckles, which moved like oiled smoke as he shuttled the pence-pieces back and forth with negligent grace.

 

The potential client was rather late. Almost later than Vel was willing to put up with. Not because he hadn’t the patience, but because a disregard for the time of others in pursuit of their survival and livelihood, spoke of a person who might also try to skive-off payment for services rendered. At least in Vel’s experience and according to overheard anecdotes from chatty colleagues.

 

Not that Vel had any issues with solidifying his reputation by making examples out of skinflint, thieving clients. He was simply a  _firm_  believer that if one was good at something, then one should never do it for free, if that could be helped.

 

And Vel Rilienus was both _very good_  at his particular skill-set and diligent about _helping it_.

 

By the time he’d been kept waiting for just over an hour, per the incongruous grandfather clock by the stairs leading up to the proprietor’s living quarters, he’d gone from patiently alert, to bored . . . and still alert. In the time that’d limped by, he could have scared up another two jobs, perhaps. Especially since it was a Tuesday. If Vel had the hang of any one day, it was Tuesday.

__

 

__

_Five more minutes_ , he decided, as someone who positively reeked of cheap wine and despair sat with exaggerated care on the stool to his left. To his right, a woman with a low décolletage, a smile like toppled tombstones, and who’d introduced herself to Vel as “Hilaria Opilio,” flirted and laughed with Guntrum Hauer, a low-level enforcer of Anders descent. Vel neither liked nor disliked Hauer—the same could be said for anyone, even the people he robbed, hurt, and/or killed—but the man was expansive and entertaining, easy-going and unlikely to start trouble for Vel.

__

 

__

And though Vel was a man of no friends or allies, he did not make a habit of collecting enemies. Hauer was firmly a not-enemy, as far as Vel was concerned. Until experience or suspicion labeled him otherwise.

__

 

__

With a glance at the worn grandfather clock, Vel sniffed and shrugged. It’d been nearly seven minutes since he’d told himself only five more.  _Bugger this for a game of soldiers_ , he thought, fingers rippling in a fluid flourish. Moments later, Vel had disappeared the pence-coins into his left palm one by one, quite without conscious direction. His mind was already on one of the more notorious pubs in the sector that was known for its plethora of shady employment opportunities. He’d find his own jobs, as ever, without waiting for Jonno Marullus’ cast-offs.

__

 

__

“Fascinating! How—how d’you  _do_  that?”

__

 

__

Starting at the sudden, slightly slurred conversational gambit, Vel nonetheless did not let his affect shift one tic as he turned his head and blinked over at the drunk to his left.

__

 

__

The first thing he noticed about the man, as about everyone, was his eyes. They were a stormy sort of gray, loopy, but keen. Observant and merry. They were set in a face that was aristocratically handsome, and put Vel in mind of every  _altus_  and Magister he’d ever seen, including Magister Leontius and his heir.

__

 

__

At least at first. The longer Vel stared—and he was, he realized, staring . . . and quite openly, jaw dropped in a slight gape—the _less_ the drunk reminded him of a Magister. Even despite those noble features, and the sundry obvious and effortless evidences of his class.

__

 

__

Perhaps it was the smile not far below those eyes—sly but warm, amused but kind, haughty but self-aware and somewhat rueful—but Vel, after a moment of hesitation, also disappeared the dagger he’d instinctively freed from his right, wrist-mounted holster.

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“Really, tha’s . . .  _that is_  bloody  _astounding_  . . . how good you are with your hands, I mean . . . and your fingers,” the drunk added, his loopy-wide storm-eyes dropping to Vel’s left hand, then lifting higher—lingering at Vel’s broad, prominent shoulders, and sturdy, tapering, but tunic-obscured torso—before taking the slow-route back up to Vel’s face. That smile widened fractionally, followed by a swipe of tongue-tip over pouty lips that were framed by a neat, dark mustache.

__

 

__

Vel frowned and gave the drunk a once-over of his own. The man looked to be an inch or two above average height, probably slightly taller than Vel, and solidly muscular, as advertised by his somewhat revealing, but approaching-threadbare, scarlet finery. Vel’s gaze lingered, for some strange reason, at the single bare shoulder on display. The fashion was a recurring one in Minrathous, though on its way out of style again for some predetermined span. (Vel knew this only because Ciceria had a habit of hanging about in his room to chat, or gossiping at him as they passed on the stairs. Tendencies he indifferently allowed as long as he wasn’t in a hurry. Vel Rilienus was  _never_  lonely, but the  _other_ -boy—the one who’d died a slow death from isolation and purposelessness—always was. And he had a habit of nagging Vel to at least pretend at compassion and empathy for those who suffered the same affliction.)

__

 

__

When his assessing and intent gaze met the drunk’s again, he caught a look of mild consideration and veiled interest on those intriguing features.

__

 

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“My, but you  _are_  a curly . . .  _curious_  creature, are you not?” the drunk decided, speaking with the over-precise enunciation that often came with drunkenness. But his eyes scanned Vel’s face once more. “I’d take you for a Leontius straight out of Pervy . . . hah!  _Per-i-van-ti-um_ , with that solid, compact build, and the striking and envinable . . .  _enviable_  bone-structure.  _Especially_  those cheekbones . . . and the nose, and jaw. In fact, but for that rust-colored hair and the shade of your eyes, you’re the very  _image_  of that blowhard, Baldazar . . .  _Baltasaro_  Leontius.  _And_  his horrid sister, Honoria!  _Eugh_! Hmm, those  _eyes_ , though,” he mused softly, slurring a bit less as he tapped his lower lip with one elegant finger. “The typical, Leontius eyes, almond-shaped and long, yes. But I’ve never seen  _anyone_ with irises that steely shade of greeeeeen. How marvelous!”

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__

Vel, who’d frozen at the mention of the Leontius name, only realized he was gaping once more when the drunk’s brows lifted, dancing and coy.

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“That was, by the way, a compliment,” he said when Vel merely continued to stare. He waved his graceful hand with negligent and flippant amusement, as if to dismiss his own nonsense. “Not my best, of course, yet serviceable, I suppose. I’m  _extremely_  witty and charming, even when utterly squiffed, and thus possessed of a ver . . . dirigible? No,  _veritable_  storehouse of poetical description and praise. Especially for such an  _attractive_  specimen as yourself.”

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__

Vel’s brows were the ones to lift, this time. Not by much—his affect rarely shifted even in the face of danger—but enough to be noticeable by his drunken bar-mate, if that deepening smirk was any indication.

__

 

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“Not interested,” Vel said without inflection or thought, his voice as unmoved as his face. Before he could turn away, however, the drunk laughed, bright and friendly, displaying even, white teeth and, as he tipped his head back, the long, strong, olive-toned column of his throat. Which Vel only stopped staring at when the other’s laughter finally trailed off and he straightened, studying Vel’s face once more.

__

 

__

Vel let his eyes drift back to the grandfather clock and remain there, narrowed in a faintly forbidding squint.

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“Ohhhhh,” his bar-mate purred, his voice low and compelling in a way Vel wasn’t used to hearing with regards to himself. “Don’t get me wrong: you are _breathless_ . . .  _breathtaking,_ that is. I find you intensely distracting and would like nothing more than to take my leisure getting to know you in a shamelessly primal sense. However, I have other needs that are a bit more . . . pressing, at the moment.”

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Vel blinked at the clock but said nothing and the drunk sighed, running a hand over his meticulous, dark hair, and leaning on the sticky-wet bar-top and closer to Vel.

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“According to that helpful gentleman puking on the hearthstones next to the fireplace,  _you_  are none other than Val— _Vel_  Rilienus. Which means you’re  _exactly_  the man I need to see, and for reasons beyond the carnival.” When Vel blinked again and met those sparkling gray eyes once more out of sheer confusion, the drunk smirked, bitter and a bit weary. “ _Carnal_ , rather. I beg your pardon. I’m called Filius Septimus. A mutual acquaintance, Jonno Marullus, recommended you to me as a man who can get things done. I’m, er, looking to hire some muscle, as it were. As soon as possible, really. Or  _now_ , even,” he added, his gaze flicking over Vel’s shoulder. His eyes widened in genuine dismay. “Er.  _Now_  would, in fact, be optical.  _Optimal_.”

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__

Vel, who’d heard the creaking door to the  _Dog_  open even over the bustle of the crowded pub, didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. These latest entrants weren’t his business. Yet.

__

 

__

The drunk’s gray eyes had grown wider, still, locked with fear and frantic desperation on the trouble that had entered the establishment. His face wasn’t, it was clear, used-to or cut-out for such a helpless and near-craven expression.

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For the first time in a long time, Vel felt the faintest ember-glow-burn at the core of him, of  _rage_.

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“Huh,” he said with seeming indifference, still not bothering to look in the direction of his potential duties. He nudged Septimus’ clammy fingers with his own and those round-frightened eyes ticked to his, startled now, too. “Jonno’s lucky I haven’t yet butchered him and dumped the unsellable bits into the harbor. But that’s not your lookout. You want this problem solved, or just warned-off, _domine_?”

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__

“Erm.” Septimus bit his lower lip and for a moment, Vel absently wondered what it’d be like to anchor his own teeth in such plush, probably sweet real estate, then soothe that claiming bite with his tongue. But the moment passed when Septimus chuckled nervously and shrugged. “Is, ah, is there a vast price-difference between the two?”

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“Killing’s easier than maiming. Less work for me. So, warning-off’ll cost a third again as much.” Vel shrugged, too. Septimus’ eyes widened even more. He looked dismayed and uncertain in a way that made Vel feel . . .  _something_. Unsettled, perhaps.

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“You are . . . quite chillingly placid about taking lives for money,” Septimus noted, glancing down at his hand on the bar. It was only then that Vel realized his fingers were still resting lightly on Septimus’.

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For the first time since that  _other_ -boy had died nearly two years ago, Vel blushed. His instinct was to move his hand, but he sensed that would be more of a tell than letting it remain, as if the continuing contact didn’t matter. He also ignored Septimus’ last statement, since observations were not questions and thus did not require an answer—especially when they were accurate.

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“Listen, I, er . . . I can’t pay you immediately. It might . . . be a few days. Weeks,” Septimus admitted in a breathless rush, his eyes ticking to Vel’s face almost questioningly. “I need an advance, of sorts, on your particular skills, _Serah_ Rilienus. But as soon as I can—the very  _moment_  I can—I’ll pay you for services rendered. On that, you have my word.”

__

 

__

Vel smiled, mirthless but amused, himself. “Of course, you will. I’m not someone clients make a habit of screwing over. If I was, I wouldn’t be hired so frequently. Solved, or warned-off, _domine_?”

__

 

__

Septimus’ eyes flicked over Vel’s shoulder again and his fear returned. “I  _don’t_  want them to take me,” he said softly, his eyes darting briefly to Vel’s again. This time, they were agonized and miserable. “But I also don’t want them  _dead_ , if there’s any recourse. I just . . . want them to  _leave me alone_.”

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Vel made a noncommittal noise. “How much are you in for?”

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Septimus blinked, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. “How much am I—? Ah. You mean  _money_. You think I . . . er, well. Well. Let’s just say, they’ll demand more of me than I’ll ever be able to give without accepting a fate that I find . . . far more unsavory than hiring someone to warn them off,” he said in a low, guilty voice, but met Vel’s gaze again with despairing eyes and a pale face. “Or, yes, I suppose. Perhaps even  _kill them_. If that’s what it takes to deliver my message plainly.”

__

 

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Vel’s brows lifted and even he didn’t know what the lifting signified. Though some of it was still amusement and curiosity. Rare enough birds, those two, that he was surprised to have spotted them in  _this_  harsh climate.

__

 

__

“If I  _don’t_  solve your problem tonight, permanently, you’ll likely wind up paying a series of ne’er-do-wells, such as myself, to  _keep_  them off you, _Domine_ Septimus. The former option is both more efficient and cost-effective.”

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__

“I . . . would prefer to be addressed as _serah_ , thank you. And they want only what they were promised. They may be in the wrong for what they do, but  _I’m_  more in the wrong for—I have no right to—” Septimus started and Vel surprised them both by chuckling.

__

 

__

“ _Serah_ , I am a thief and a killer, not a sister with the Southern Chantry. If you wish to absolve yourself or gain the moral high-ground, I’m not the person to assist you with that. If you wish to continue living, and make these angry financiers of yours an example to others who’d set themselves against you . . . I suggest  _you_  let  _me_  do what I’m  _best_  at.” Vel shrugged. “We’ll work out a timeframe and method of payment later.”

 

Septimus sighed once more. “You’re . . . rather enthusiastic about plying your trade, aren’t you?”

 

The smile Vel bent on Septimus once more was slight and crooked and cold. “I’m good at it. And I don’t turn my nose up at opportunities to  _keep_  being good at it. Especially if I’m getting paid—eventually—to do so.”

 

“Ah, yes! If one has honed a valuable skill, one should  _never_  ply it  _gratis_! Perish the thought!” Septimus declared with suspect brightness and glee. His eyes were more miserable than ever, though. And Vel couldn’t help but start at this fancier recitation of his own rationale.

 

For some reason Vel couldn’t immediately figure out, this random bit of synergy made him feel extremely uncomfortable, but in a very nebulous way. This time,  _he_  was the one to look down . . . his fingers were stroking slowly along Septimus’ with a savoring, almost soothing reverence. In the bright, orange firelight of the pub, the blood under Vel’s nails looked like nothing so much as dirt.

 

But of greater moment than his incarnadined nails, was the soft, cool glide of Septimus’ skin under the callused tips of Vel’s fingers, like a living skein of  _peau de soie_. Baltasaro Leontius had once given Vulpo Helvius’ mother a lace-edged, rose-pink handkerchief made of the expensive cloth, all the way from Val Royeaux. Thessalia Helvius had, of course, been utterly in love with the gift and its giver in a way that’d made Vulpo both angry and sad for his soft-hearted mother. . . .

 

Vel did  _not_  shiver from the memory. Nor did he shiver from the contact with Septimus . . . but Septimus did. Or he shivered from  _something_. Probably from the proximity of his creditors. Vel, himself, could feel the mutters, whispers, and silence of the intimidated crowd precede these unsubtle antagonists. His hackles were raised and his blood was rushing-burning through his veins, mostly to points south of his belt.

 

 _Vel_  had never achieved or even tried for an erection in his short, bloody life, and certainly wasn’t about to,  _now_  . . . perish the thought. But  _Vulpo_  certainly had. He had  _particularly_  pleasant memories of getting them and of attending to them, either alone or with the assistance of other  _liberati_  and a few  _soporati_  boys. But now, as ever, the shade of Vulpo Helvius was in  _agony and despair_ ; and this time it was over the knowledge that this stronger, fiercer iteration of himself found the prospect of imminent violence and death as . . . exhilarating as Vulpo had once found a silken expanse of warm, willing skin and the whisper-kiss of worshipful lips on his touch-hungry flesh.

 

“The way you look at me, _Serah_ Rilienus,” Septimus murmured in both wonderment and dismay. His gaze-drawing mouth was turned down in the faintest of frowns. And when Vel’s eyes drifted to Septimus’ round, gray ones, the other man blinked, blushed, and looked much younger than Vel’s original estimation of thirty years or so. Perhaps not even twenty-five, yet. “I’m hard-pressed to settle on which you’d be  _more_  keen to do, if given the chance: bed me or murder me.”

 

For the first time in his life, Vel grinned. Then laughed. “Doing both wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility, I imagine. Both feel good, in their own way. And good feels are good feels.” Vel gave another shrug, and Septimus’ sparkling eyes sparkled even more as he smirked.

 

“You’re an incredibly disquieting young man,” he said, turning his hand over beneath Vel’s. His palm was soft and warm, just like his eyes. “Not to mention a  _rare_ , eye-pleasing delight. Well, then. Off with you, I suppose. Smite my enemies, make of them an example,  _et cetera_. Whatever you feel is most . . . effic . . . efficaro . . . do-able.”

 

Septimus’ eyes still looked guilty at the prospect of killing being done at his behest, but he also seemed resigned and ready to bear up under that guilt because he had no other sensible choice. And such marshaling of strength and resilience made Vel nod in approval. Normally, he didn’t give six shitting fucks whether his clients could handle the fallout of their decisions, so long as they paid him for acting upon those decisions.

 

But Septimus was . . . different, in some way.

 

Now, however, wasn’t the time to figure out how or why. Septimus’ problems had spotted him, and were meandering closer, smug and assured of their prey. Vel could feel their hostile-hungry attention piercing past him, to focus on Septimus. And so could Septimus, obviously, despite not shifting his anxious, gray gaze from Vel’s face.

 

His near-constant affect in place once more, Vel stood easily, unhurried, and Septimus’ gaze followed him up.

 

“You’ll, er . . . you’ll be careful, won’t you?” he asked hesitantly. Vel let the slight, upward drift of his brows speak for him and Septimus snorted. “Right. Silly question, that. Apologies.  _Careful_  is probably not part of your lexicon, is it?”

 

“No.”

 

“Of course, not.” Septimus snorted again. “Well, in that case,  _good luck_ , _Serah_ Rilienus. Try not to get yourself killed.”

 

“Vul— _Vel_ ,” the _other_ -boy started to say for them both, but Vel was quick enough to head him off at the pass with the only name anyone knew him by anymore. His skin flushing and blanching alarmingly, he held Septimus’ gaze, even though it was suddenly difficult to do so. “Or just _Rilienus_.”

 

Septimus’ smile widened again, brilliant and startling.  _Stunning_. Vel didn’t even know what to do in the face of such a smile. Or the way Septimus’ fingers closed around his own for a few moments. Or the way those wide eyes grew nearer and nearer. . . .

 

 _Or_ the ice-fire, tingle-burn of his lips when Septimus sat back, flushed and still smiling. His lush mouth curved in a crafty, smug smirk as he slowly licked his lips.

 

“Delightful,” he murmured, then sighed, sliding his hand out from under Vel’s. His eyes were all stormy promise and hunger. “Maker guide your hand, Rilienus.”

 

Vel’s entire body was overheated, but especially his face. Especially his  _lips_. And the  _other_ -boy was very close. Close enough that Vel couldn’t tell which bits of himself were him and which were Vulpo Helvius.

 

That boundary had  _never_  been so blurred as it was in this moment.

 

So, Vel/Vulpo did the only thing they ever could, anymore. They nodded once and smiled—grimacing, grim, and lowering—and took this latest job. With twin twitches of their arms, they were holding their grandfather’s bright, Dalish daggers in both bony, out-sized hands.

 

The  _elvhen_  blades were cold and reassuring—weighted  _perfectly_  to Vel/Vulpo’s hands, fingers, and  _instincts_  in a way that was more magic and destiny than anything  _any_  Magister could conjure.

 

Thus outfitted, Vel Rilienus/Vulpo Helvius turned to face the four, large leg-breakers awaiting his leisure. He didn’t bother meeting their obedient-dull-arrogant eyes, and instead sought the gaze of the fifth behind them. Their captain was a youngish woman with a stark, familiar face and a ready, martial manner.

 

Tall, spare, blade-still, and blood-keen, Mettia Verres was another low-level  _soporati_  enforcer-for-hire whose reputation was still being built on the backs—throats—of small-time debtors such as Filius Septimus.

 

Still being built, yes. But the foundation of that rep was solid.

 

Vel—and it  _was_  merely  _Vel_ , once more . . . the dividing lines between himself and the  _other_ -boy had been neatly reestablished at the realization that for once, there might be an actual bit of  _challenge_  in this job—was unaware that his smile had gone from flat and mirthless, to genuine and almost beatific.

 

Being a man of action, rather than words, he shifted into a ready-stance, Dalish daggers up and gleaming. As the crowds around him and his opponents hurried to distance themselves from this not-uncommon scenario, the enforcers were already moving in, clearly planning to surround Vel like a pack of jackals around a wounded stag.

 

Usually, Vel let his opponents take the offensive and used that opportunity to size them up. But he already had a good read on the four brutes trying to corral him. His best chance of getting out of this alive and relatively unscathed, was to take them down _fast_ then focus on their calculating captain.

 

The thought of weighing-in against a possibly worthwhile opponent made every inch of Vel thrill and awaken. Made him come to life in a way he almost never did. And Septimus’ tangible gaze on his back—admiring and hopeful, even from the safer distance of near-the-grandfather-clock—only sweetened and sharpened that exhilaration.

 

With death in his hands and a song in the void that passed for his heart, Vel Rilienus went to work.

 

#

 

“The pulses are coming faster, now,” the soldier, Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, said unnecessarily, her rolling-flat Nevarran burr tinged with worry.

 

Mahanon, blinking up at her dazedly from his position of supine in the snow beside the frost-covered trail, then allowed himself to be helped to his feet even as his left hand spat green-gold fire and sent ice-fire-lightning agony up his left arm. This time, the pain didn’t stop at his shoulder, but spread, hot, slow, and dull, throughout his left ribcage and spine.

 

When he was somewhat steady and nodded his readiness, the Seeker let him go reluctantly.

 

“Are you able to go on?” she asked tersely, clearly worried below her stoic façade, and not for Mahahon. Rather, not  _simply_  for Mahanon. Whatever else she thought or supposed of him, she seemed to at least believe he hadn’t been behind the explosion at the Conclave and the death of Divine Justinia.

 

Had he been given permission by Keeper Deshanna to be candid upon his capture or detainment, he could have told the Seeker:  _The parameters of my mission had nothing to do with your Divine or anyone else at your Conclave. It fell to me to observe and report, nothing more._

 

But Mahanon had  _not_  been given such orders. He had never been  _caught_  while using any of his many useful skills—at least not since he’d started using them in service to the Lavellans—to make such an unlikely  _what-if_ worth planning for.

 

There was simply no contingency for something as unprecedented as the foremost Lavellan Hunter and spy being captured by grief-mad  _Shemlens_  looking for a scapegoat in the wake of their Divine’s assassination.

 

Glancing down at his glowing, green-gold hand and the energy emanating from and crawling over it, Mahanon shook his head.

 

“ _Able_  is a relative state, Seeker Pentaghast. And I have no choice  _but_  to continue,” Mahanon grunted, his voice both sore and matter-of-fact. Cassandra smiled at him briefly, hard but approving. Then she nodded north.

 

“The larger the Breach grows the more Rifts appear. And the more demons we face,” she grimly explained as they continued up the path. Mahanon’s head still ached, though not as much as his entire left side, namely his burning-freezing arm and his injured leg. Nonetheless, he kept up with the Seeker’s stride, not ignoring the pain, but letting it fuel his determination.

 

Something was  _wrong_  with the world. And it was only getting wronger  _faster_  since the explosion at the Conclave.

 

And now, there was a green-gold tear in the heavens, and Mahanon’s left hand bore a green-gold Mark, given by a green-gold Lady.

 

These things were not mere green-gold coincidence.

 

Though his mind had cleared in the hour since his bonds had been cut,  _that_  muzzy certainty had carried over from the dazed realizations in his cell.

 

__

“How did I survive the blast?” he asked, just to say something and because he was curious about the Seeker’s take on the whole matter. He, himself, thought that his survival was also no coincidence. That for whatever reason, that glowing Lady had  _chosen_  him. Had passed this Mark on to him.

__

 

__

And whatever that Mark meant or could do—aside from killing Mahanon rather rapidly and agonizingly—he was not only charged by Her faith and confidence to uncover its uses, but to use them to right the massive wrongs spreading across Thedas. Not just for the Dalish or for what was left of the  _Elvhen_  Peoples everywhere. Nor for the  _Shemlens_  or Dwarves or Qunari.

__

 

__

Not  _even_  for Filius Septimus, though Mahanon’s greatest motivation was saving the world for the last person he’d loved and who’d perhaps loved him, after a fashion.

__

 

__

He would right whatever wrongs came riding down out of the sky—out of the Fade, itself, through the torn Veil, sending demons and horrors ahead of it as a vanguard—because he was probably the only one who  _could_. If what he and apparently this Seeker sensed and believed were true.

__

 

__

_Whatever_  the Mark meant . . . it also meant Thedas’ last chance to keep itself free of the evils over which it had no actual control or natural defense.

__

 

__

“They said you . . . stepped out of a Rift,” the Seeker finally answered, picking up her pace a little more as Mahanon managed to keep up. “Then fell unconscious. They say a woman was behind you in the Rift. No one knows who she was.”

__

 

__

Mahahon nodded, keeping his own counsel as Cassandra went on. He was no Andrastian, no adherent of either the Imperial Divine or of his Southern counterpart, Divine Justinia V. Nor was he, as his mother and grandfather before him—and a large number of his ancestral Clan, besides—a supplicant of Andruil, the  _Elvhen_  goddess of the Hunt. Though he followed the  _Vir Tanadhal_  closely and took great strength and solace from even the smallest branches of the Three Trees, he knelt to no gods and had never looked to the sky for anything other than sun or rain.

__

 

__

Now, however, as he and Cassandra loped to and then across a wide, stone bridge that was being held by more soldiers, he found his attention taken not by the pain of his left side and hand, but by the overcast, lowering sky above the bridge. To the north and somehow beggaring the very mountains, themselves, the Breach hung in the heavens like a hideous, pulsating rent in the fabric of Thedas. Of  _reality_.

__

 

__

“ _A Fen’Harel_ ,” Mahanon found himself swearing, his right hand covering his heart as he felt spirit-deep, strength-sapping disgust for the first time since a boy called Vulpo Helvius had accepted the seemingly impossible sum of money that had resulted from his sister selling herself at auction. His stride slowed just enough that Cassandra glanced back at him. Mastering himself, Mahanon hurried on moments later, murmuring an ancient and oft-heard litany under his accelerated breath:

__

 

__

“Andruil, Blood and Force, Your people pray to You. Grant that Your Eye may not fall upon us. Spare us the moment we become Your prey. . . .”

__

 

__

And, in the midst of his first prayer made to a higher Power in  _any_  of his lives, a green-gold bolt struck from the northern sky, blasting the stone bridge to its elements mere yards ahead of Mahanon and Cassandra. For eternal moments, the entire world was burning, insistent green-gold light spreading from Mahanon’s left hand, to the rest of him in one riptide of exalted agony . . . then the sensitized chill-tingle left in its wake.

__

 

__

When the Breach-blast was over, just as with the explosion during the Divine Conclave, the entire world quickly became little more than hazy dust-clouds and broken stones, falling bodies and mortal screams.

__

 

__

Then darkness . . . and silence.

__

 

__

TBC

__


	4. The Cruel Right Hand of Filius Septimus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His first night on the job and Vel Rilienus gets beat to Hell and back. To the point that following the pretty, high-born drunk he now works for to his stupid-fancy rooming-house seems like a not-idiotic idea. Things progress—more or less—much as everyone but vicious-naïve Vel would expect.
> 
> Meanwhile, in the not-so-distant future, Mahanon Lavellan and Seeker Pentaghast wade into a skirmish against Rift-wraiths and other unsavory guests, courtesy of the Breach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Angst and smut, romance and self-reflection/realization. Hints of kink that will be explored. Identity issues. Implied past violence and tending to injuries.

 

**Chapter Three: The Cruel Right Hand of Filius Septimus**

 

“Erm . . . you’re limping. . . .”

 

Vel Rilienus, striding along in grim silence, toward the rooming house where Filius Septimus had mentioned he was staying, grunted absently. Septimus, surprisingly silent until now, merely kept pace easily: a pretty, somewhat sobered peacock in his faded, scarlet finery. Thankfully, he was walking to Vel’s left, thus that exposed left shoulder wasn’t such a blatant distraction.

 

But considering that Vel’s entire left side seemed to ache like a rotten tooth from the blows Mettia Verres had landed after he’d sent her underlings off to their final reward, he supposed that Septimus’ shoulder probably wouldn’t be a distraction at this point, even if everything it was attached to was similarly unclothed.

 

His left ribs, though not broken, were bruised and tender . . . probably cracked. Enough to make breathing an unpleasant necessity that was accompanied by undignified wheezing and the occasional groan.

 

Sooner, rather than later, he could feel Septimus’ gaze upon him once more, now mostly sober from worry and adrenaline.

 

“You’re also bleeding, _serah_.”

 

“And water is wet, _Domine_ Septimus. Please, tell me some _other_ obvious facts you clearly think I’m unable to suss-out without your kind intervention.”

 

In the tense, wounded silence that followed, Vel felt something quite bizarre. He felt _foolish_. And intolerably immature. He’d never snapped at anyone before—never felt irritation or anger personal enough to necessitate such a . . . pointless reaction. Certainly not regarding a client or employer. And not on the rare occasion that the client or employer seemed to be genuinely concerned for his welfare.

 

 _Rare_ meaning _unprecedented_.

 

“I . . . apologize,” Vel said awkwardly in the continuing, offended silence. His voice sounded stiff and strange and flustered to his own ears. Even though Septimus was still right beside him, he felt uncomfortably distant. Felt as theoretical and impossible as any random stranger in far-away Ferelden. “That was . . . unworthy. Both of me to say and of your kind sufferance. I beg your pardon.”

 

Septimus’ surprise was a palpable thing, but Vel still didn’t look over at the other man. Not until he sensed that he was walking alone.

 

Stopping, he half-turned back the way they’d come. Septimus was watching him from several steps back with those wide, brilliant storm-eyes, his pretty, high-born face compassionate and considering.

 

“What?” Vel wheezed and winced, then reached up to at last wipe away the trickle of blood from his aching, slightly swollen nose. Then from his lower lip, split open as it had been on his own teeth . . . the result of a lucky blow landed by one of Mettia’s underlings.

 

Soon after, that particular underling—the last enforcer standing, other than Mettia Verres, herself—had gurgled out his last, drowning breath around one of Vel’s Dalish blades.

 

(It had given Vel no small measure of satisfaction that the man’s last memory, the one that would keep him eternal company in the infinite quiddity of the Fade, was the sight of Vel’s own bloody-lipped face twisted in a disinterested, impersonal snarl.)

 

Septimus merely stared at him for another minute, while Vel, himself, stared at the crimson smears on the back of his right hand. He so rarely bled, that when he did, it was objectively fascinating. This time was no different, until Septimus sighed ruefully. Vel looked up, his face set in its customarily bland expression and the other man smirked gamely, if a bit self-mockingly.

 

“Well!” he declared, marching up to Vel, on whom he _did_ have about three inches, and upon drawing abreast, peremptorily taking his guardian’s left arm. He did so gently, gingerly, but even so, Vel grunted a bit. Septimus bent a concerned look on him, then held his arm more firmly, but still gently. “ _Clearly_ you’re in need of some cossetting after taking care of those four brutes and that horrid woman leading them! We’re almost to my rooming house, so let’s not dawdle, eh? No sense tempting the murderers and cutpurses!”

 

“I _am_ the murderers and cutpurses,” Vel mumbled, letting Septimus lead him on at a markedly slower pace than Vel would have preferred . . . even though his left side was rather grateful.

 

“Yes, well, that’s quite true. But you’re _my_ murderer and cutpurse, unlike those others. And I take care of what’s _mine_.”

 

Vel frowned and didn’t know how to feel about that statement. But he let it stand and let Septimus assist him hence.

 

#

 

Vel awoke, for once, feeling relaxed and lazy, suffused with warmth and . . . smiling. Even before he opened his eyes, he was smiling.

 

But his smile faded as he realized several alarming things at once, just before he would've opened them: he was not only _not_ alone in his bed, but he wasn’t in _his bed_ at all; despite the strangely deep and intense feelings of well-being, he was rather more injured than he’d been since his first forays into the Minrathous underworld; and he was almost painfully aroused in a way that had the _other_ -boy purring like a drugged kitten, but which only exacerbated Vel’s alarm.

 

Or it did, until amorphous-edged memories from the previous night jostled their way to the forefront of his flailing, paranoid mind.

 

Unaccountably, the fading smile widened. Oh, yes. He remembered Jonno Marullus’ cast-off client . . . the pretty, highborn drunk with the stormy eyes and smart, luscious mouth. He also remembered the team of enforcers on said drunk’s scent, who’d needed a spot of killing. . . .

 

 _More than a spot, really,_ Vel’s persistently achy, sore left ribs and tender face informed him, even as his mind took up the tale where it’d left off.

 

Screams and horror, blood and bodies . . . same old thing; different, more recent evening. Vel, not being the brooding type, as some of his ilk could be, nonetheless told himself the story of the cap to his previous night's labors. The unspooling narrative was recounted in part by his compromised, point-to-point memory, and in nearly-as-large part by the _other_ -boy’s fuzzy-dim-gilt nostalgia and hope.

 

Upon stalking as calmly and easily out of the _Dog_ as possible, ignoring wide-eyed witnesses—some impressed, some assessing, some figuring out angles—and without any sort of trophy, he’d started shuffling to the right, if only because he was already listing that way.

 

His client, shocked and hesitant, had caught up with him quickly, mumbling his address and nudging Vel in the opposite direction of his own rooming house. He’d kept darting wide-eyed glances at Vel, whose energy and attitude had already been flagging. Indeed, Vel had been starting to wheeze and stagger, and simply keeping himself from listing even more embarrassingly had been a job of work.

 

Nonetheless, ever professional, Vel had walked the pretty drunk, _Filius Septimus_ , to his rooming house. Not exactly in a tone-y part of Minrathous, but acres better than Vel’s sector. And even though Septimus had apologized for his “shabby and tight living quarters,” it was still larger and nicer than anyplace _Vel or Vulpo_ had ever lived. The “room” Septimus was renting was, in fact, a _suite._

 

So, Vel’s response to that had been his typical response to most of the things Septimus had said, thus far: a noncommittal grunt and quickly averted eyes. Scoffing in exasperation, Septimus had sighed and bid him stop lingering half in the corridor, to shut the door to the suite behind him, and to have a seat before he fell over.

 

“’M fine,” Vel had grumbled, but obeyed. He’d been too tired and sore to do anything else. Besides which, he’d been _hired_. Filius Septimus had engaged his services—and obviously had expected to need them for a while, yet—and thus wouldn't have been likely to try and kill him _before_ his usefulness was done.

 

When the time for remuneration eventually arrived, Vel would, of course, be far more wary than to relax on his employer’s stupid-fancy sofa in his stupid-fancy suite. For the time being, though, Septimus had _needed_ him. And Vel had trusted that need implicitly. Life was, he’d long-since discovered, a series of weighings-against and trade-offs, at its most basic and honest: needs and wants, against likely dangers and betrayals. _Vel_ had always been _very_ good at such measurements and decisions, near-instantaneously as they sometimes had to be made. He’d trusted Septimus far enough to _not_ murder him or try to, _at that particular moment_. That level of trust might change in future, but for the time being, it had simply been _what it was_ , and Vel had seen no point in second-guessing himself, then.

 

Not even with the growing and unhidden fascination the pathetic, soft _other_ -boy harbored for their client burning in Vel’s chest, gut, and balls like fanned embers.

 

Thus decided, he’d barely made it to the old, but inviting sofa halfway across the main room, whereon he’d practically collapsed into its tar-pit softness. A long, breathy moan had rumbled up from his diaphragm and past his stinging lips. For some reason, that sound had caused Septimus—who’d been busy pouring himself a goblet of wine from one of a crowd of bottles on a table near the room’s lone window—to glance over at him with wide, startled eyes.

 

“Errr,” he’d said—nearly stammered, and Vel had frowned, blinking slowly at the other man.

 

“What?” he’d asked, his face settled into its usual grim, forbidding lines. His vision had been bright and keen, yet indistinct and buzzing-throbbing at the edges: the results of nearly three days of no sleep, in an effort to outrun the other-boy’s ever-more-frequent nightmares.

 

“Nothing, nothing at all, it’s merely that. . . .” huffing a desperate laugh through his nose, Septimus had gone back to pouring his wine, guzzled the goblet, then poured himself another, full to brimming. “You, er . . . you’re quite cruel to tempt a louche wastrel when he’s doing his utmost to behave like a gentleman.”

 

Vel had blinked again. But that hadn’t helped along his banjaxed vision and sluggish cogitating in the slightest. “ _What_?” he’d demanded again, nose crinkling as he’d leaned back in the sofa. Septimus had eyed him with consideration, amusement, and rather startling heat and intensity.

 

Not as deep down as Vel usually stashed him, Vulpo Helvius had stirred and yearned and held his breath. _Sighed_ , while Vel, for his part, had merely blinked again.

 

The moments had passed with Septimus quaffing half his goblet, then putting it down on the bottle-cluttered table with a hand that had been unsteady.

 

“ _Cossetting_ , my _dear_ Rilienus!” he’d exclaimed, clapping his hands together briskly, his face nearly as scarlet as his almost-outmoded outfit. And before Vel could express his opinions and feelings on that matter—or anything else—Septimus had strode off, disappearing into the suite’s bedroom. Or so Vel had presumed since he had no way of knowing for certain without his own explorations. As so many rooming houses in Minrathous tended to, this one had indoor plumbing as a bare minimum, which meant Septimus’ _suite_ likely had its own _en suite_ with running water and a toilet.

 

Though he’d certainly used both quite frequently in his life, Vel’d never lived anywhere that boasted individual, rather than shared bathing facilities.

 

At any rate, Septimus had soon returned, divest of his scarlet plumage, and wearing nothing more alluring than a pair of flowing, but clinging beige bottoms meant for lounging or sleeping. They’d looked worn and comfortable, hanging rather enticingly off the points of Septimus’ hips and offering peeks and flashes of fine-boned ankles. _Below_ those somehow enthralling ankles, Septimus’ feet had been exquisitely in keeping with the rest of him: proudly arched, well-kept, and with agile, clever toes.

 

 _Above_ the waistband of the beige bottoms, Septimus’ gently-defined abdomen and sternum had widened gracefully up to his perfectly proportionate, distracting shoulders. His arms had _also_ been distractingly well-defined and strong-looking, with busy, arcane tattoos marching up and down the right, and a single tattoo on the left bicep, which Vel hadn’t been able to make out from his otherwise enviable vantage-point.

 

By the time Vel’s tired eyes had made their slow, lingering way back up to Septimus’, it’d been to see the other man had paused in his approach and was simply standing near the sofa with a tin of some sort of salve and a large roll of pristine gauze.

 

He’d once more looked quite shocked, his cheeks flushed and his lips slightly parted.

 

“Rilienus,” he’d finally said, choked and low, a shaky, but deep breath belling out his chest in a way that’d drawn Vel’s helpless, throbbing eyes for a few lengthy seconds. Once he’d finally managed to meet Septimus’ gaze again, the other man had flushed even deeper and looked down, his brow furrowing. “That is . . . _Vel_. . . .”

 

“I . . . should probably be going. You’re safe, for now,” Vel had said, then didn’t so much as shift, let alone attempt to stand.

 

“Safe. For now, yes,” Septimus had agreed, his frown deepening. Then he’d licked his lips and looked up once more, holding out the salve and gauze slightly. “But since I can’t pay you for your services, just yet, at least let me tend and bind those ribs so they pain you a bit less.”

 

 _Pain doesn’t bother me. It means I’m still alive enough to feel_ , Vel _had_ meant to say and then shrug indifferently, signaling both an end to the discussion and his readiness to be gone. But what’d come out instead when he opened his mouth was: “If you insist.”

 

The left side of Septimus’ mouth had quirked and there was another flicker-flash of heat in those eyes. It’d been yet another thing that’d made Vel uncomfortable, and about which he hadn’t known how to feel. The _other_ -boy’d had a few suggestions, but it’d been old, effortless habit to ignore _Vulpo’s_ pathetic bleating.

 

“I do. I insist,” Septimus had said, then closed the distance between them with his gaze meekly averted and a small, secretive smile.

 

“Cossetting” Vel had consisted of Septimus first plying him with the unfinished half of his own wine for "fortification," until, just to end the pouting and sulking and soulful looks, Vel had downed the rest of the goblet in one long swallow. He’d then handed it to a once more wide-eyed Septimus.

 

“Happy?” he’d inquired gruffly, as the tastes of sweet, tart, and floral lingered on his overwhelmed palate. Septimus had rolled his eyes.

 

“Oh, it was practically _every_ dream I’ve ever had come wonderfully true!” he’d replied with strident sarcasm. Then, with another blush, he’d put the empty goblet aside, then knelt before Vel while not breaking their gazes. Swallowing once more, he’d pushed Vel’s knees apart decisively. His gentle, warm hands had squeezed the area of thigh just above Vel’s knees then moved a bit higher . . . before stopping short—though, of _what_ , Vel had told himself he couldn’t imagine—and scooting closer between his thighs.

 

This time, _Vel’s_ eyes had been the ones to widen. But after another audible swallow, Septimus did nothing more alarming than shove up Vel’s grey woolen tunic to assess his ribs. He’d hissed, bit his lower lip, and let his face crinkle in a displeased and sympathetic moue at the state of Vel’s torso.

 

“Oh, Rilienus,” he’d murmured guiltily, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Before Vel could figure out what, if anything, he should’ve done in response, Septimus had sighed, opened his eyes, and shoved Vel’s tunic up some more, with businesslike efficiency. “Hmph. Off with it, then.”

 

Muttering, and groaning as he maneuvered the heavy tunic—and his concealed daggers and other weaponry—off, Vel had finally pulled it free of his aching left arm and hand, with his heavy right. Then he'd dropped the tunic on top of his blades and let both arms flop down at his sides. His breathing had once more become an accelerated wheeze, and his ribs and chest had hurt more than ever. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed his eyes until Septimus’ cool, slick, gentle fingers touched his ribs and slowly, lightly spread the salve he’d retrieved, which smelt of mint and herbs. It’d prickled as Septimus slathered it on Vel’s side with careful fingers, then mellowed to a warm tingle that radiated through purpling skin and sore muscles, to aching bones.

 

As Septimus had applied the salve, he’d also checked Vel’s ribs for signs of breakage with a knowledgeable, if not overly-practiced hand.

 

“All right, then, Vel Rilienus,” Septimus had finally said, his quiet, kind voice nonetheless startling Vel out of a curiously deep half-sleep. He’d found himself blinking loopily into Septimus’ wide eyes and smiling for no reason—certainly not to threaten or intimidate. Nor as part of the camouflage he’d always found it easier to wear when going along to get along.

 

No, Vel Rilienus had been smiling because he’d felt . . . content. His whole body had ached and his head had been buzzing and muzzy and dozy. His eyes had been dry and stinging, and it’d been bloody _awful_ when he forgot and took a deep breath. He’d got the shit beat out of him not much earlier and had _only just_ managed to not get murdered by Mettia Verres. And yet. . . .

 

And yet, he’d never been more at peace in his life than in those falling action-moments. Than in the undeservedly gentle denouement to which the night had been winnowing. Not even Vulpo’s comparatively fairy-tale life and frequent miniature- _divertissements_ had featured anything _quite_ like this. Like _Filius Septimus_ , or his soothing-distracting-energizing touch.

 

At that realization, Vel’s already fading and extremely rare smile had settled into a far more familiar grimace.

 

“Does that hurt you, then?” Septimus had asked suddenly, his brow furrowing again in concern and sadness. Vel’s brows had drawn together, too. Just for a moment, before shooting up.

 

“Well, yes. Those human golems nearly beat the arse off me _and_ out of me,” he’d said, snorting ruefully. Septimus had huffed and smiled a little. “Bloody _right_ , it hurt.”

 

“No, Rilienus . . . Vel. I meant . . . does _feeling good_ cause you pain?” he’d ventured with clear reluctance. But before Vel had even reacted to the leveling of such a pointed question, Septimus had paled and looked down at the gauze in his left hand. “I beg your pardon, _serah_ , that was . . . terribly rude and rather cruel a thing to ask. Please, er, blame it on the wine or the stresses of the evening. . . .”

 

Septimus had fallen silent and concentrated on unspooling the gauze. Vel had watched him for some brief, but infinite span, his own psyche awhirl and as stormy as Septimus’ lowered gaze.

 

“Yes,” Vel had finally admitted, sitting forward and reaching out with his right hand to still both of Septimus’. They’d been _so_ soft and caused pleasant tingles from the moment of contact.

 

 _Because of remnants of the salve_ , Vel had told himself without a shred of belief or confidence, or even recourse.

 

Septimus had winced, and his gaze had ticked to Vel’s bruised and colorful ribs. Then up to Vel’s face. Without a moment’s thought, Vel had reached out with his aching left arm and cupped Septimus’ warm, smooth face in his palm. He’d been surprised and pleased and _sad_ when Septimus had leaned into his touch as if he’d been doing so for years.

 

None of this had been part of the plan. Not part of the way things had always gone and would always go.

 

And yet. . . .

 

“I prize _consistency_ ,” Vel had said, his brow furrowing as, for the first time, he’d sought to explain himself to another in part, if not in whole. Not in whole _yet_. “Above all else, I value what I can predict and expect and _rely upon_. _Happiness_ has never . . . _is not_ that thing, for me. _Good things_ are not that thing. Not in _this_ world, Septimus, and _not for me_. I’m . . . not the smartest man in the Imperium, but I can recognize patterns. I’ve learnt the hard way how to see them and exploit them. The _only_ consistency for me in this world is action-spawned misery and misery-guided action. The other shoe always drops, eventually, no matter _how_ good the _good things_ are or how transcendent the happiness. _I_ have _never_ known a lasting happiness, and I never will. But I’ve always been able to rely upon misery. The steadiness and persistence of it. Once in a while, it ups the ante, of course. But it’s mostly dependable, predictable plateaus, with the occasional steep descent. I can live with that. I’ve never lived with anything _else_. And if asked which I'd _prefer_ to live with, I’ll _always_ choose steady misery over spotty, _unpredictable_ happiness. The latter hurts a _thousand-thousand_ times worse during its inevitable decline, than the former does throughout, and with its occasional new nadir. After a lifetime of practically nothing else learnt, I _have_ learnt _that_. And I will _never again_ let myself forget it, or foolishly believe otherwise.”

 

That said, Vel—or perhaps it was the _other_ -boy . . . _Vulpo_ —had fallen silent. Septimus had stared at him with shock and sadness . . . and understanding. But no _pity_. Vel honestly couldn’t have said what he might have done to the other man, had he expressed such a sentiment unsolicited.

 

Thankfully, neither of them had had to find out. Septimus had merely gazed into Vel’s eyes, for several minutes after he’d reached up to hold Vel’s hand to his cheek, then smiled a pained sort of grimace, himself.

 

“That’s a . . . very stoic and utilitarian philosophy for one so young,” he’d eventually opined. And again, Vel had grinned, unguarded and absurd.

 

“You don’t know how old I am. I could be older than you.” Though that had _not_ been the case, by several years at least, Vel had known. Septimus had clearly recognized the same, and had snorted and rolled his sparkling eyes.

 

“If you’re even old enough to _know better_ , I’ll smile and eat this gauze!”

 

Vel had chuffed a silent , but achy laugh when Septimus’ sly smirk acquired hints of fondness.

 

“Well, I’m . . . _old enough_. Old enough to know it’s . . . definitely _not_ _murder_ anymore. Not at all,” Vel had finally confessed, gone breathless and reluctant, himself. Septimus had looked puzzled, then brightened and blushed, glancing down for a moment, before biting his lip and all but glowing up at Vel, once more.

 

“The things you say,” he’d murmured, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to the pad of Vel’s thumb, before pulling away and letting go. Then, once more brisk and businesslike, he'd stood, gesturing that Vel should do the same. With another groan, Vel had obeyed once again, waving off assistance. When he’d gained his feet, the room was spinning lazily and his whole body felt wrecked. “Stubborn, bloody fool,” Septimus had noted, then gestured imperiously. “Arms up and out to the side, _serah_ , so I can bind those ribs.”

 

Again, Vel had obeyed and Septimus had, indeed, bound his ribs.

 

By the time the other man had been satisfied that Vel’s ribs were not only being held in place, but wouldn’t—should they get itchy feet—be able to go walk-about, Vel had been leaning on him more than a little, unable to draw a deep breath for love or money. But the taller man’s skin had been so warm and smooth and _soft_. Sweeter than a lullaby wherever it’d contacted Vel’s skin, which was . . . _many_ places.

 

And when Septimus, with a put-upon sigh and an inaudible mutter, had steered them both toward his bedroom—bearing most of Vel’s leaden, barely-conscious weight—neither Vel, nor the lonely, but hopeful _other_ -boy had been in any position, state, or mood to protest.

 

Certainly, Vel’s memories of those final moments would be hazier, later, than all that had come before. He’d barely remember anything beyond the intimate-dim lighting of Septimus’ cluttered bedroom and the sudden softness of a bed under his face. It’d smelt of wine and incense, that bed. Of mild soap and something musky-sweet that Vel had recognized as _simply Septimus_.

 

Then Vel’s sturdy boots had been pulled off and he’d rolled onto his back, smiling-smiling-smiling, and then. . . .

 

After _that_ . . . the dark.

 

Now, hours later, peering out from between his scarcely-opened eyelids, he took stock of his surroundings as mid-morning sunlight, leavened by partially open shutters, slowly informed his nebulous memory of Septimus’ bedroom. Large and with blue-and-lilac papered walls, it boasted two big pieces of furniture other than the bed: a worn, baroque armoire and a scarred chest of drawers both in rich, dark wood. A spotless, narrow, framed mirror, no doubt as tall as Septimus sat near the ajar exit. A _long_ rack laden with colorful clothes butted the wall just next to a slim door that probably kept a closet. Finally, a small table and two mismatched chairs sat in the cheerful sunlight spilling through the shutters. On that table was a small bowl of fruit, a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, cubes of cheese, and relevant dishes and utensils.

 

Closing his still-weary eyes once more—momentary safety assessed and _relatively_ assured—Vel now took stock of _his bedmate_.

 

The warm body sharing the bed with him, presumably his client’s, wasn’t merely lying next to him, but clinging close and tight to his achy left side. Septimus’ hand rested on Vel’s chest, just above the gauze. A few inches below Vel's jaw, Septimus' face was tucked in against Vel’s throat. His breathing— _snoring_ —was soft and gusting and even. Trusting.

 

This should have been uncomfortable and undesirable, especially considering Vel’s sore left side, but . . . it wasn’t. It was warm and lulling and rather pleasant. And when Vel sighed and turned his head to his left just a bit, he could smell Septimus’ dark hair. The musk-incense-soap scent of him seemed concentrated, and designed to ensnare and cloud Vel’s senses and mind. His heavy, tender left arm, wound around Septimus’ gorgeous shoulders, clutching ever tighter and more possessively without his mind’s interference.

 

For some indeterminate span, Vel simply laid there, his normally rat-run, juggernaut mind unfocused and free-floating. The empty space in his chest was aching-aching-aching, just as everything on his left side was this morning. He didn’t even realize he’d been slowly tightening his clutch of Septimus’ shoulders to a near-throttle, until the other man burbled his way to partial wakefulness, snuffling and snorting and nosing at Vel’s throat. Then he grumbled petulantly, but the sigh that followed was contrastingly contented.

 

“You’ve changed your mind back to _murder_ , I see,” he mumbled, yawning quietly, but for almost half a minute. Then, with another pleased and lazy sigh, he settled in Vel’s constricting embrace again, his mouth a sweet, smug curve against Vel’s Adam’s apple. The hand that’d been curled on Vel’s chest walked its lightly callused fingertips to the center of Vel’s sternum, then settled there for a few moments before teasing lower, over the gauze. “That’s rather a shame, as I’d been looking forward to that _other_ option we’d discussed. . . .”

 

Vel’s accelerated breathing paused, then he exhaled in a sudden, but slow rush. Septimus’ clever, interrogative fingers traced his abdominal muscles with reverence and savor for several minutes, before moving hesitantly lower, still. It wasn’t long before the barrier of Vel’s waistband—his bloody-damned, heavy, dark cotton trousers—became an issue.

 

Rather, Vel thought for a moment that it _might_ become an issue, but then Septimus simply chuckled and let his mischievous fingers skate over the fabric of Vel’s button-fly, and down . . . and, then, _up_.

 

“ _My_ , you’re just _all_ the lovely surprises, aren’t you, Vel Rilienus?” Septimus hummed with a singsong sleepiness Vel was certain was a put-on. Then he was gasping in a deep, shaking breath that he then held as Septimus teased and encouraged the erection trapped by the heavy trousers. “If you _don’t_ give-in to the temptation to murder me—understandable, if you do . . . I _am_ a piquant wit but an eccentric gad-about who can be difficult to . . . _apprehend_ —I can promise that I’ll thank you in _grand_ fashion.”

 

“I . . . I. . . .” Vel _and_ Vulpo stammered out, lost and frightened and panicked. They both remembered the boys back in Perivantium, who’d shown interest and shared their bodies with Vulpo gladly . . . but they’d been just that: _boys_. This . . . this was a _man_. A grown man who presumably knew what he wanted and preferred, and would accept from a . . . potential lover.

 

And Vel, more so than his _other_ , couldn’t claim any of those character-traits. He was, he understood with a painful, but unimpeachable clarity, _not_ a man, but merely a boy, also. A scared, lonely, _bitter_ boy who stole from, and hurt and killed people who’d never done him ill, for profit and pleasure.

 

Vulpo Helvius had, since his assumption of the Rilienus-identity, not grown _up_ , merely grown cruel and callous, and ever more despicable. Miserable.

 

He’d become . . . warped. Become a funhouse mirror-version of a fully-realized person. And never in his nearly two years of chaotic, play-for-pay mayhem, had he felt his lack of dimension, genuine purpose, and worth more keenly.

 

“Rilienus?” Septimus’ hand slid off Vel’s hard-on and back up to his abdomen. His stomach. His . . . _heart_. Then Septimus sat up and when Vel sensed the other man leaning over him, exuding worry, he squinted his eyes open, sniffling as scalding tears ran down the sides of his face. Neither he nor his _other_ had shed a single tear since Thessalia had died. Not even when Ateia sold herself into slavery just to give her brothers a chance they’d _squandered_. That _Vulpo_ had squandered.

 

 _That . . . that_ I _squandered_ , Vel acknowledged as the ache in his chest became agony. He rolled his head until he could only see the shuttered window. But even though he couldn’t see Septimus’ eyes, he could _feel_ them. Couldn’t help but be drawn back to them like a moth to a flame.

 

“ _Vel_?” Septimus was whispering, his beautiful eyes guilty and wet as he cupped Vel’s right cheek in his palm, stroking away tears with his thumb. When they continued to fall, too fast to quell or catch, he pressed tender, affectionate, _kind_ kisses all over Vel’s face. “Please don’t . . . I didn’t _mean_ to . . . I apologize for taking unwanted liberties with you. For . . . upsetting you,” he breathed, leaning his forehead and nose against Vel’s for a few seconds before starting to pull away.

 

But Vel’s arms, heavy and weary and aching, nonetheless wrapped around Septimus’ bare waist, pulling the other man down on top of him. He, too, was hard, and moaned when he settled atop Vel, weighty, solid, and _right_. He gasped and writhed sinuously, when Vel shimmied and bucked up against him sharply. Those wide, stormy eyes were scared and wary, needy and hopeful. They were Vel’s entire reality.

 

“Vel,” Septimus husked out yet again, shaking and small. “This—having you like this—is _not_ a condition of your continued employment.”

 

“I know,” Vel replied, his hands sliding down from Septimus’ waist, to his divinely grippable arse. Then they both groaned, loud and startled and _relieved,_ when Vel’s bony-big hands scrabbled under the waistband of the sleep bottoms, then squeezed and _kneaded_ with unhesitating possessiveness. “And it’s . . . _this_ isn’t something you have to . . . I don’t _expect this_ as a stop-gap to keep me from h-hurting you. Or from betraying you. Or from b-badgering you about my bloody fee,” he stammered, and blushed and felt utterly foolish. _Green_.

 

Septimus chuckled wryly. “Oh, you _don't_ , do you, _serah_?”

 

“No. Not at all, _domine_ ,” Vel promised. Earnest and low. It was the first promise he’d ever made to anyone, himself included. But that final word was what made them _both_ shiver in anticipation.

 

Sighing, Septimus did some shimmying of his own, humming when it turned into frantic, mutual grinding, complete with swearing and grunts. Then he leaned down closer, so that his lips brushed Vel’s with every word and breath.

 

“We don’t have to do _anything_ you don’t want to do, Vel.”

 

“I . . . I want to do _you_. I’d l-like that _very_ much.”

 

And Septimus laughed with nearly innocent delight when Vel nodded his urgent sincerity. Then Septimus’ slightly parted lips pressed Vel’s tentatively. Then more firmly. Then _intently_ , claiming them with bruising desire and pent-up need. Septimus’ mouth and tongue tasted clean, if sleep-stale . . . faintly floral and tart-sweet, like the wines he seemed to prefer. And a far sight better than _Vel’s_ acrid, bitter-bland morning-breath.

 

But Septimus didn’t seem to mind that. Not if the way his kiss deepened and consumed Vel, like the tenacious licking of fanned flames, was any gauge. Such passion rendered Vel’s purely academic knowledge of how to kiss of next to no use, when confronted with such a skilled and determined partner as Septimus was proving to be. Vel could only submit to the other man’s talent and teasing and _taking_.

 

Not that that was in any way unpleasant for him.

 

Soon, Septimus straddled Vel’s thighs and was exploring his chest with acquisitive hands and fingers. Circling, and then pinching and twisting Vel’s nipples with varying intensities and durations, until Vel broke their kiss to cry out, breathless and primal, arching up against Septimus, his own desires and needs laid bare beyond excepting.

 

“Oh, _you are glorious_ , my dear _serah_ ,” Septimus exhaled when Vel returned to himself in the midst of instinctively hooking his right leg around Septimus’ and rolling them over in a painless take-down. Once on top of the other man, Vel stared down into eyes that were mostly abyss-dark pupils, with thin, surrounding rings of gray. Then, when Septimus grinned, big and challenging, Vel growled his way into another kiss, hard and uncoordinated, but still very fine, for all that.

 

Septimus’ hands were warm and appreciative on Vel’s back. Then lower and lower, until they were clenching on Vel’s arse, tight and demanding.

 

“Bloody, Maker-damned _trousers_!” Septimus grumbled into their kiss and Vel laughed, levering himself up on his right arm, just enough to unbutton and shove down the offending trousers with his left hand. Once they were a puddle of cheap, rough cloth at his knees, he went to sprawl back on top of Septimus, but those warm, appreciative hands stopped him, pushing at his chest until he caught the hint and sat up fully, settling on his heels to let Septimus look his fill.

 

Those eyes were even warmer and more appreciative than the hands had been, roving across Vel’s broad shoulders and upper chest; down his spare, tapering sternum and bandaged ribs; over his abdomen; along his narrow waist, hips, and pelvis—Septimus’ gaze darted archly back up to his eyes, brows playfully waggling, then down again—and finally to Vel’s prick, where it stood upright almost angrily from his thatchy, copper-colored pubic hair.

 

Septimus stared for so long, Vel began to grow nervous. He had never given his looks much thought at all, nor wondered how he measured up to other men when it came to . . . the length and girth and attractiveness of his prick. All he knew was that _Vulpo_ had never had any complaints from the boys he’d taken to bed, then _taken_. But considering the mutual lack of experience in most of those encounters, that really didn’t mean much. . . .

 

“ _Glorious_ ,” Septimus repeated. Then again, when his eyes finally met Vel’s once more. And that was all he _needed_ to say to draw Vel’s untried smile and unused heart.

 

And they smiled at each other like besotted twits for a minute, while Vel grew visibly harder and redder. Septimus’ smile turned into a devilish smirk and he sat up on his elbows, his face and chest flushed prettily.

 

“Touch yourself,” he commanded, low and a bit hoarse. And though Vel’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously, he didn’t hesitate to obey. He wrapped his ungentle, inexpert hand around his prick, hissing and swearing as it slid back and forth through his slickened, tightening grip.

 

“ _Ahhhh_ ,” he groaned, his normally deep, steady voice creaking and cracking. Septimus’ smirk was terribly smug, his eyes glued on Vel’s prick with possessive anticipation, flickering and flashing. “ _Domine . . . oh_. . . .”

 

“Yes. _That_ ,” Septimus exhaled, licking his lips and glancing up at Vel’s perspiring, hectically-ruddy face. “Call me _domine_ while you take me.”

 

Vel whimpered, his eyes fluttering shut as his hand tightened with quelling cruelty around his prick.

 

“I’ll do _whatever_ you ask of me, _domine_ ,” he whispered. Never the best liar even in his most self-possessed moments, Vel had no reserves to make a go of prevarication now. This statement was nothing less than the _truth_ of him, even if it was only a temporary truth. Even if _Vel Rilienus_ was only a temporary person.

 

When he felt settled enough to open his eyes without coming just at the sight of Septimus, Vel did so warily. The other man was stroking and fondling himself roughly through his sleep pants, which had developed a spreading wet-patch. Vel wanted nothing more than to suck at that patch of fabric until the taste of Septimus was more memory than fact. Pursuant, of course, to ripping the vexing article of clothing from Septimus’ body.

 

And either Septimus was a mind-reader or Vel had muttered something of his desires aloud, because when Septimus smiled up at him, all challenge and amusement and heat, he said: “Flattering as that is, _serah_ , I’d prefer it if your mouth was engaged in a pursuit that we _both_ would hopefully enjoy, rather than just you and my frankly undeserving night-wear.”

 

Vel huffed a slightly wheezy laugh, and ignored his complaining ribs. Even as he reached out with his left hand to hook his fingers into Septimus’ waistband, the other man bucked up and shoved his trousers down. After Vel quickly took over, pulling the garment down as far as he could, Septimus sighed and reclined in a pose that was as sensual and wanton as it was self-conscious and preening. He _could_ have been merely lying abed and daydreaming of nothing more lewd than a meandering stroll through his neighborhood.

 

He could have, indeed, but for his pretty, flushed prick cleaving to his pelvis.

 

But for those intense, demanding _eyes_.

 

“I’m going to spend myself in your greedy mouth and down your willing throat,” Septimus informed Vel with somehow implacable nonchalance, his fingers teasing up and down his prick a few times before moving lower to cup his balls and squeeze them gently. He moaned as his eyes fluttered shut, then canted his pelvis up a bit, his fingers sliding along the thin, sensitive strip of skin _behind_ his balls, and then. . . .

 

“ _And then_ , my dear, _dear_ Rilienus, _you’re_ going to show me what you can do with that intimidating cock of yours. And show me. And show me. And _show me_ ,” Septimus hissed, his body gone taut as his fingers teased the as-yet unseen entrance to the only Promised Land Vel could _imagine_ wanting, even as he couldn’t _precisely_ imagine taking up residence in that land. “ _Yesssss. Show me_ , Vel, until I come again, screaming so loud, I can’t even hear you call me _domine_ anymore. Until my neighbors hate and envy me, and my chaste and sterling reputation is _utterly_ besmirched. . . .”

 

Gripping his willful prick tighter than ever, Vel swallowed and calmed his unsteady breathing, unable to look away from where Septimus’ fingers played with and pleasured himself. Even the part of Vel that was still and would always be _Vulpo Helvius_ felt overwhelmed, and _far_ from his zone of comfort, expertise, or familiarity.

 

Here, before him, was a sensual feast that beggared the appetite and the imagination. Here, before him, was more beauty and carnal promise than any one man deserved to have await his sampling and savoring. Here, oh, _here_ —

 

“Vel,” the other man finally murmured, all shaking, naked yearning, his thighs spreading wider in invitation and desperation, his fingers daring more and dipping deeper into his quivering body. Septimus’ loud moan was wavering and nearly a yowl at the end.

 

Stunned almost beyond decisive agency, Vel let his eyes travel slowly, admiringly up to Septimus’ half-lidded ones and inclined his head once, slightly: submission and acquiescence—an oath given and a promise made—before lowering his body to Septimus’. He pinned the heated, perfect, _ready_ form beneath his own hard, and for long moments he nuzzled Septimus’ nose, cheek, jaw, and neck, all of him acknowledging the _rightness_ of all of _Septimus_. Of every level of this ordained progression.

 

Vel _scented_ Septimus—imprinting and being imprinted—like the gut instinct-driven wild-thing he’d _always_ be, at heart. He nipped along the elegant, silken column of Septimus’ throat and left vivid, _livid_ lovemarks that elicited soft, high, approving cries.

 

Septimus’ arms wound around his neck, his body hitching and stuttering up against Vel’s as they both kicked and struggled their trousers down and off. Meanwhile, they continued grinding against each other without any semblance of an objective or synchronicity.

 

“ _Vel_. . . .” Septimus finally gulped again, more plea now, than command. He was all shuddering, quaking _heat_ and longing. “Please, I _need_. . . .”

 

“Yes, _domine_ ,” Vel replied with both word and deed, gravely aware that this admission . . . this _liaison_ would cost him. Would demand of him more than he perhaps had to give. Vel Rilienus was _ever_ aware of costs and trade-offs, even if he couldn’t always identify the shape and substance of them immediately. So, when he stepped onto this road of possibilities, he did so with humility and acceptance of his deep ignorance. With open eyes _and_ fierce, undimmed eagerness. But he was reverently tender as he kissed his slow, savoring way down Septimus’ body, to the pretty prick—and the uncharted, secret-sacred territory below it—that awaited his mouth, his lips, his teeth, and his tongue. Not to mention _his prick_ , Maker-willing. “ _I need, too._ ”

 

#

 

Mahanon calmly, but firmly refused to drop his acquired weapons at the Seeker’s predictable, but unreasonable insistence.

 

Upon shrugging off a few moments of unconsciousness after the Breach-bolt destroyed the bridge, he’d found himself struggling upright on a frozen stream. He’d been dazed again, but nonetheless staggered onward, following the seemingly uninjured and redoubtable Seeker even as the icy wind had cut through his battered body like a knife. Despite her command to _stay behind me!_ Mahanon had already been limping after her, automatically veering a bit off-course before he’d been conscious of the reason.

 

The dull shine of mass-produced steel, near the corpses of soldiers half-buried under the rubble that’d crushed them, had been the near-immediate answer.

 

Without hesitation or qualm, he’d taken up those shines: a dagger, and a shortsword of solid, but not remarkable make. And he’d used them to dispatch some sort of Rift-wraiths, glad that ordinary steel had an effect on the creatures while they were on this plane.

 

Still dazed and horrified in the wind-driven, sporadically snow-flecked silence, Mahanon had shortly found himself at the business-end of Cassandra Pentaghast’s greatsword.

 

Now, after a rather unchallenging staring-contest, she seemingly had no rejoinder to Mahanon’s brilliant spot-argument of: _Bloody_ demons _tried to bloody_ kill _me and_ you can’t _bloody_ promise _that’s a one-off. You have no allies, here, and far too many enemies to make_ me _an enemy, as well._ Or _a casualty, for that matter._

 

Now, Cassandra . . . Seeker Pentaghast, finally lowered her sword a bit, torn and ambivalent. For a moment, anyway. Then she sighed and shook her head.

 

“You’re right,” she said quietly, sheathing her blade with weary deliberation. Mahanon suspected she was surprising them both. “I cannot protect you. And I cannot expect you to be defenseless.”

 

“I’m never defenseless,” Mahanon said with a small, wry smile, clutching the dagger—well-made, but not as suited to him as his grandfather’s Dalish daggers, which were probably still under lock and key somewhere near Mahanon’s cell—and brandishing the sword with a silly-showy flourish. He snorted and bowed his head respectfully. “But tempered steel is _always_ a welcome addition. My gratitude, Seeker Pentaghast.”

 

The Seeker huffed and blushed, and repressed a small smile of her own, turning toward the Breach once more. “Yes, well, I should and _will_ remember that you did not attempt to run. Hurry. It’s this way,” she urged, calm but impatient as she stalked off without waiting to see if Mahanon would follow her or sheathe his newly-acquired steel in her gut. Or her back.

 

The pros of doing the latter two, however, didn’t remotely outweigh the cons, even in the short-term. So, her trust, for lack of a better word, was well-played. For the moment.

 

It wasn’t much longer into their steep ascent until Mahanon could hear the sounds of a clash, ringing and frantic, over his own winded panting.

 

“We’re getting close to the Rift!” Cassandra called from slightly behind him. “Can you hear the fighting?”

 

“Yes! But _who’s_ fighting?” Mahanon gasped, aching, but putting on a burst of speed from reserves of which even he hadn’t been aware. The Seeker, too, stretched her legs. She also sounded winded.

 

“You’ll see soon—we _must_ help them! We _must_ hurry!”

 

But he already knew that. The resurgence of ice-fire-lightning spreading from his once-again glowing palm had _already_ informed him of that much even before he’d heard the siren-call of the battle that still lay ahead.

 

Sword in his right hand and dagger—as always—in his glowing-burning left, Mahanon Lavellan scaled the steepening incline without pause, but for a moment of brief and calculating assessment at the top. Then, soundless and lethal as a wraith, himself, he carved into the desperate fray with the stalwart Seeker by his side.

 

TBC


	5. A Man with a Mark and a Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven years beyond the most fateful night and morning of Vel Rilienus’ young life, “Mahanon Lavellan” meets some notable players in what will become the Inquisition. Including an elf-mage who won’t stop staring at him and is actively trying to blow Mahanon’s cover as a Dalish spy; a Grand Chancellor whose concern for the world doesn’t stop him from being a supreme arsehole; and a _gorgeous_ and saucy crossbow named “Bianca.” Our beleaguered Herald also realizes that if he’s somehow able to survive the horrors waiting in the mountains and the Temple beyond, the Mark on his palm is likely to kill him not long after, anyway. 
> 
> Plus, that elf-mage really _won’t_ stop staring at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Mentions of killing, homicidal thoughts. Conscience only when it’s convenient. Same ol’ same ol’. No other warnings I can think of. But note, that no matter what the secondary pairing, the _primary pairing_ is always gonna be the _main pairing_ in my fics. The end-pairing. Probably the happily-ever-after one, if the Muse plays cricket. Dorivellan or bust y’all! No bait-and-switch, here!

 

**Chapter Four: A Man with a Mark and a Mission**

 

The final Rift-wraith fell and disintegrated into acrid-smelling mist after Mahanon ran it through with his found shortsword, then followed through by beheading it.

 

Of the well-made dagger, thrown at the right eye of a wraith—or where the right eye _should_ have been—before it could swoop down on the dwarf wielding an unusual and _impressive_ crossbow, Mahanon saw no immediate sign.

 

He scanned his surroundings slowly, his iffy, throbbing vision making a hash of everything that wasn’t white, black, or green-gold. He spotted the dwarf and, not far from him, greatsword still raised, the Seeker. Relief flooded him that she was still alive. She was a solid ally, or had the possibility of becoming one, for a time.

 

Before Mahanon could decide what, after all of this, there was to say, let alone say it, his left hand flared into bright agony of a sudden. He was so shocked by the pain of it, so much greater than it _had_ been, that he dropped the shortsword to clutch at his wrist. He was only grateful that he didn’t drop to his knees, groaning and gasping.

 

Before he could wrap his big, bony, battered mitt around his wrist, another hand was already there, clasping tight and cold and iron-hard.

 

“Quickly! Before more come through!”

 

Mahanon staggered as he was dragged around and toward the hideous, green-gold rent—hanging like a tumor in the air . . . a Breach, in miniature, far too nearby—by a tall, gangling elf with a tall, gangling staff that still crackled and crawled with arcane energies. His hackles raised even as he allowed such a command and such uninvited aggression from a mage, and was pulled closer by his burning-aching-freezing left hand, to the repugnant green-gold tear in reality.

 

“What—” Mahanon demanded as the elf clutched his left hand in a strong, long, firm grip, and held it up and at the pulsating wrongness. He glanced with dismay and puzzlement at the other man, as if at a lunatic, and saw that the mage was gazing intently at the Rift, his long, ascetic’s face set with stone-grim fortitude.

 

Then, Mahanon wasn’t seeing anything as pain bolted to and through and from his arm, drawing out of him something that seethed and froze and rushed, like a sudden orgasm in a winter pond. From the corner of his horrified vision, he could see the Rift just before them throb larger for a few moments before it contracted then seemed to silently implode. . . .

 

Then, Mahanon was falling to his knees, gasping and clutching his ice-cold arm to his torso, his hand splayed pale and wide, with green-gold lightning travelling the width of his palm and up his fingers.

 

As the lightning faded and Mahanon’s icy-achy hand regained a bit of feeling, the elf-mage knelt in front of him, folding gracefully like a switchblade. Mahanon closed his hand into a fist—tight, not loose, as he had no intention of beating _this_ mage into submission . . . _yet_ —and looked up into eyes as pale as the overcast winter sky in which the Breach hung dominant.

 

“What . . . did you _do_?” Mahanon asked, his voice rasping and sere from cold air and shouting. The elf-mage smiled and it was clearly an uncommon expression for his thin, stark mouth and still, unreadable face. It touched his pale eyes only slightly, and not necessarily genuinely.  The mage was amused about something, but bleakly so . . . wry and sardonic in his apparently under-expressed way.

 

“ _I_ did nothing,” the mage said, quiet and still amused. He was holding Mahanon’s gaze easily, which was something only two other people had ever done since Mahanon had first assumed the Rilienus-identity, nine years ago. (Indeed, and for only the third time since he’d cast away the identity he’d been born to, _Mahanon Lavellan_ found it difficult to hold the gaze of another.)

 

The second person, Keeper Deshanna, had long-since seen into Mahanon and read all his secrets. From her, now, there was nothing to fear, neither judgment nor censure. Her acceptance of and even fondness for him was a constant that Mahanon had grown to trust, as much and as far as he trusted anything.

 

The first had long since vanished into the depths of time and of the Imperium, assuming he was even still alive. And that simple and unfounded assumption had done more than anything to keep Mahanon going, long after he should have laid down and done the world the kindness of dying.

 

“The credit is yours,” the mage went on softly, finally glancing away just before Mahanon would have. He stood, extending his long arm and hand, and Mahanon accepted them with his right, after a single moment of wary hesitation. During that moment, a chilly-sharp charge of energy seemed to pass between their clasped arms as Mahanon was pulled easily to his feet. Again, he staggered forward a bit, disoriented and rather woozy, and the elf-mage caught him in rangy-strong arms that were nonetheless gentle and protective.

 

This close, Mahanon had to look up to meet that pale, steady gaze, which narrowed as it held his.

 

“ _You_ . . . are Dalish, are you not? In part, anyway?” the mage added, breathless and as if that hadn't been what he'd wanted to ask at all. Mahanon blinked as the blood drained from his face. It was rare, indeed, with his rather unsubtly _shem_ -featured face, flat ears, Tevinter accent, and not-quite-brawny, muscular build, that anyone—even elves and even elf- _mages_ —recognized him as elf-blooded. To date, Deshanna had been the only one to spot the non-human half of his parentage almost immediately.

 

And unlike _this_ elf, Deshanna’s realization had come with only curiosity and compassion. A sort of reaching-out of which Mahanon had rarely been the recipient.

 

 _This elf_ , however, beyond his curiosity—which Mahanon sensed was both towering and unstoppable . . . as obsidian-hard as it was endless—had little in common with Mahanon’s kindly Keeper. His show of curiosity was exactly that; a show, concealing a power-play of some kind and for some abstruse intention, at worst. Or merely for his own edification and distraction from . . . whatever he'd really wanted to ask, at best. And that curiosity was as lacking in mercy and heart as a winter night. Cruel, only because of its ultimate indifference, not because of honest animus or hope of some gain.

 

“Despite the way Tevinter is branded upon your very bones, you have a certain Dalish air, as well,” the mage continued, with those narrowed eyes and a faintly disapproving quirk to his thin mouth. One which eased as his eyes narrowed further. They scanned Mahanon’s face, lingering more than once at his eyes, searching-searching-searching. For what, Mahanon didn’t know, but he had no interest in giving it, and made his gaze a wall on which many had shattered themselves. The elf-mage blinked, then smiled, bland and cool. “But there is also something about you that is . . . far more _elvhen_ than any Dalish I’ve ever encountered. Something raw, uneasy, and . . . _pure_. Your _eyes_ . . . who are your Clan? Whose Hunt do you lead and what is your quarry?”

 

Mahanon made a point of holding the mage’s winter-pond gaze and letting a deadly, venomous sneer curl his lips just a fraction. This elf clearly wielded his keen observational skills and integrative powers—his ability to metabolize, connect, and _use knowledge_ —as a natural weapon. Mahanon occasionally did the same, when he had the luxury and time to be so subtle. But he was far more willing to first use _actual weapons_ as weapons. He almost never had time for games or ambiguity when someone was attempting to gain the upper hand or put him on the defensive.

 

Thus, putting an end to the easy self-assurance, or even life, of a mage was a rare, but not unprecedented treat in Mahanon Lavellan’s life, and for as far back as Vel Rilienus’. If he found himself needing to do so again with _this_ mage . . . so be it.

 

“In light of _that_ , I would say that _all_ clans are _my_ clan, now. And as for what I hunt,” Mahanon intoned with dry, but dire threat to _back off_ as he nodded at the distant Breach. “Anything that comes of _that_. And speaking of. . . .”

 

Holding up his quiescent-for-the-moment left hand, palm out toward the elf-mage, he let his left brow quirk in obvious inquiry. The other didn’t glance at Mahanon’s hand or flinch away, as most would have. He merely continued to study Mahanon with silent interest and veiled speculation, until Mahanon shivered.

 

“What you did . . . with my hand,” he began with unusual hesitance and grit-toothed deference, finally scowling off at the sky as he sought a way to finish his query that wouldn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth. For once, the monstrosity in the heavens was _less_ disconcerting than what was on the ground before him.

 

“Again, Hunter, I did nothing. Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that Mark upon your hand.” Now, at last, the mage looked at Mahanon’s trembling hand and palm, frowning. At that moment, Mahanon only just realized the other man was still gripping his arms because the grasp of his left arm gentled and slid up a bit toward his wrist. “I theorized the Mark might be able to close the Rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake. It seems I was correct.”

 

“Meaning . . . it could also close the Breach, itself.”

 

Mahanon started, and both he and the elf-mage looked over at Seeker Pentaghast. She seemed as ever she had, neither especially winded nor tired, and not injured. For some reason, that made Mahanon want to smile, even though, as usual, he did not.

 

“Possibly,” the elf-mage allowed, with a slight incline of his head to the Seeker, before turning his considering and once-more amused gaze back to Mahanon. Only now, it was _voraciously_ curious. Perhaps a bit unsettled, too. His cold, strong hand was clasping Mahanon’s wrist, now, his thumb ponderously stroking the underside, just over Mahanon’s pulse. Then up to the lower portion of his palm, where it also rubbed lightly— _soothingly_?—before the mage released both hand and arm, and took a respectful step back. He inclined his shaven head once more, breaking his gaze from Mahanon’s as he looked toward where the Rift had been. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation, Hunter.”

 

Mahanon’s rust-colored brows lifted slightly and the left corner of his mouth curled into a flat, patronizing smirk, of the sort calculated to shatter moments such as these. But before he could even voice something dryly judgmental and disdainful of such a melodramatic statement—fact though it seemed to be—the dwarf swaggered over, a charming grin settled on his ruggedly handsome, weather-beaten face even though his light-brown eyes were tired and troubled.

 

“Good to know!” he said in a voice as rasping and low as Mahanon’s, and perhaps more so. He stopped near Cassandra, glancing up at her with admiring eyes. The Seeker merely frowned thunderously at him, then rolled her eyes as he laughed and petted his crossbow fondly. “And here, Bianca and I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever!”

 

Mahanon turned his startled chuckle into a snort at the last second, but sensed he was fooling no one. Least of all the grinning dwarf.

 

And least of all the elf-mage with the winter-pond eyes, who was once more studying Mahanon as if he was a June-puzzle: probably unsolvable, but worth the cogitating and pondering, nonetheless.

 

Frowning at the icy, disturbed ground with his brow furrowed, for the first time since shrugging off the Rilienus-identity, Mahanon Lavellan . . . blushed.

 

He’d quite forgotten how much he’d loathed the sensation.

 

“Varric Tethras,” the dwarf announced, bending his merry-weary gaze up at Mahanon. There was consideration there, too, but neither overly curious nor calculating. Then the dwarf shrugged, holding out his free hand to Mahanon. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tag-along.”

 

Mahanon accepted the offered hand and allowed himself to almost-smile at the firm, but not aggressive handshake. Rather than tender his own name—any of them—he merely nodded at the sky over his shoulder. He could still feel the elf-mage’s gaze like the regard of a sky full of cold and distant stars. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Varric. Especially considering that you’re a bloody maverick with that—er, with Bianca,” Mahanon said, with a shallow, but gallant bow to the crossbow.

 

Varric grinned and patted his weapon again. “Ahhh . . . hear that, baby? We’re an eye-catching and unbeatable team, the two of us. That’s why you’re always gonna be my number one-lady.”

 

“ _Ugh_ ,” Cassandra said and Mahanon didn’t have to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes in exasperation. The smirk he was fighting was rather large, indeed. Varric didn’t even bother to fight his smirk. He merely sent a knowing, over-the-top wink the glowering Seeker’s way, causing her to cross her arms in disapproval and discommode.

 

“So,” Mahanon coughed out around another stifled chuckle, clearing his sore throat. “I closed the Rift. Somehow. A nice first step, I suppose. But what, next?”

 

“Next, we go to meet Leliana,” Cassandra said firmly, already glancing off toward the road ahead with obvious concern.

 

“What a great idea! Lead the way!” Varric exclaimed for himself and Bianca, only for the Seeker to turn her startled and unhappy gaze on him again.

 

“Absolutely not!” She stalked a few steps closer to the dwarf then huffed. “Your help is appreciated, Varric, but—”

 

“Have you been in the valley, lately, Seeker?” Varric’s pronounced brows lifted above eyes that had gone solemn and grim. “Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You _need_ me.”

 

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed to a furious glare, but she finally turned away, stalking ahead for a few meters, trailing another disgusted, rueful: “ _Ugh_!” in her wake.

 

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” the elf-mage said from Mahanon’s right, stepping closer again. But not completely closing the meter or so of distance Mahanon had slowly put between them since Cassandra and Varric had joined the post-battle round-table. He glanced warily at the mage and held his ground as the other man stopped a barely polite distance away. His pale eyes were still curious, still steady, still amused. And determined in a way Mahanon didn’t know what to do with and had no instinct to trust. “And I am . . . pleased, if nothing else, that _you_ still live.”

 

Mahanon found himself frowning, and furrowing his brows again at both the mage’s relative nearness and the strangely pointed intimacy of his tone and words. Even just meeting this . . . _Solas’_ gaze was both bracing and dizzying, like diving into the winter pond his eyes most resembled. And, fortunately or not, there were no orgasms on the horizon.

 

“He means, ‘I kept that Mark from killing you while you slept,’” Varric added after the mutual staring had gone on for far longer than Mahanon could explain. His face redder than ever, he looked toward Cassandra, who was staring off down the path, then back at Varric, who smirked and shrugged, and waggled his heavy brows.

 

Repressing an _ugh_ , of his own, Mahanon snorted and pretended Solas’ unshakable gaze wasn’t raising every hair on his freezing, aching body.

 

“Well, I can’t close that Maker-damned thing if I’m dead, now, can I?” He nodded off at the sky once more, then tossed a quick scowl at Solas because he couldn’t seem to help himself. The mage was smiling, still amused, and charmed as well. As if Mahanon had somehow endeared himself in a way that was as powerful as it was unexpected.

 

“That is most certainly true,” Solas replied with unruffled ease, bowing slightly, his gaze traveling rather tangibly up Mahanon’s dirty, bruised, battered, and listing form, ending at his eyes and searching them once more.

 

Ignoring the fierce encrimsoning that took his face, worse than it’d done mere minutes ago, Mahanon also crossed his arms and turned his attention to the road ahead. But Cassandra was stalking back their way, now, her face flickering between worry and exhaustion. When she stopped in their midst, it was clear that worry had won the day and always would.

 

Whatever else she was, the Seeker was true to the causes she championed, and unhesitating. Committed and determined, and proactive in the face of doubt and danger.

 

Mahanon suddenly _admired_ her for many of the reasons he admired Deshanna. And, as with Deshanna, he was _very_ glad he hadn’t killed—or _tried_ to kill—her.

 

“Cassandra . . . you should know that the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen.” After a brief pause and a brief glance Mahanon could feel in his marrow, Solas went on. “Your . . . prisoner is _not_ a mage. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine _any_ mage having such power.”

 

Which was, Mahanon noticed, a _far_ different statement than: _No mage has such power_.

 

He sent a narrow look Solas’ way and for once, the mage wasn’t studying him. He was, instead, studying Cassandra with impersonal and laconic assessment.

 

“Understood,” Cassandra said heavily, with a sincere and respectful nod for Solas. Then her gaze swept around their circle. “We must get to the forward camp quickly.”

 

And with that, she strode off, again not waiting to see if she was heeded or followed. Mahanon met Varric’s gaze when the dwarf finally managed to tear it away from its consideration of the Seeker’s rear-end. He shrugged and patted his intriguing crossbow once more, before slinging her over his shoulder.

 

“Well! Bianca’s excited!” he declared, strolling off after Cassandra. “And I do _so_ love to show my favorite lady a good time!”

 

Then he broke into a light jog that was soon hampered by having to scramble down the partially-destroyed trail ahead.

 

Mahanon was about to start after him, then paused and gestured for Solas to precede him.

 

The mage’s regard was both gentle and weighty, and curious as ever, before he chuckled.

 

“You do not trust me behind you. Nor behind Cassandra and Varric,” he noted, and it was not a question. Mahanon shrugged indifferently, and only then did he realize his shoulders and neck were extremely tense. He met Solas’ discomfiting gaze with a lack of expression Vel Rilienus would have envied.

 

“I don’t know you,” Mahanon returned with even more frigid indifference. Not as direct a reply as he normally might have given, but hardly subtle, either. Solas’ faint smile widened, but also grew absent and wistful.

 

“Nor do you know Cassandra or Varric,” he further noted. Mahanon simply shrugged again and gestured once more for Solas to precede him. Point—whatever it was—made, the mage went, this time, moving quickly despite the rubble, the incline, and the encumbrance of his staff.

 

Mahanon watched Solas descend into the waiting, darkened valley before them, then quickly retrieved his dropped sword. And, once he’d taken a few moments to search the area where Varric’s Rift-wraith had been, the well-made dagger, also.

 

Then, after a regrettably brief time spent to center and focus himself, he, too, began the treacherous descent into the valley. With an eye to his compromised footing and the uncertain path . . . and to the elf-mage now some yards distant.

 

#

 

“. . . and the prisoner must get to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It is our only hope,” Sister Leliana was saying to a high-ranking Chantry cleric as the weary, freezing party approached the other two of the former Divine’s most trusted assistants. The third, of course, being the former Divine’s Right Hand, Cassandra.

 

Next to the cleric’s pious plumage, Sister Leliana seemed both more solid and less, in her mail armor. And, also, as if she had her hands entirely too full with the kind of bureaucratic horseshit for which most clerics seemed to be bred.

 

In Cassandra’s determined wake, Mahanon strode between Varric and Solas toward the impromptu table where Sister Leliana and the cleric were arguing over a wind-whipped map, held down by three stones. That same wind whipped Mahanon’s lank, blood-grimed hair in his face. The rawhide tie that had held back the past-shoulder-length mess had gone missing in between one wraith-skirmish and the next, on the way into the valley.

 

Now, as he moved across the courtyard of the fortress, Mahanon felt the eyes of many soldiers on him, some curious, some frightened, some . . . extremely angry.

 

With a resigned sigh, Mahanon placed his acquired steel on the top of an upended barrel not far from the Sister and the cleric, careful to move slowly and plainly. The last thing he needed was six warning-arrows to the face from some raging-grieving archer who’d lost his shit.

 

When Mahanon and his party drew near enough to stop, the posturing cleric finally noticed that Sister Leliana was no longer rebutting his arguments. He looked over at her then followed her gaze. His own narrowed as he spotted Cassandra. Then more so, when he spotted who was behind her.

 

“Ah. Here they come.” The cleric’s squinting, gray eyes drifted back to Cassandra, haughty and offended, even though no one else had, as-yet, said so much as a hail-and-well-met. Mahanon nearly sneered. Here was a man who’d have fit right in as one of the Imperium’s many power-grasping _laetans._ Or among the ranks of supercilious publicans, assuming he had no magical talent of note.

 

“You made it,” the Sister said with both surprise and relief, her eyes initially on Cassandra, but meeting each of the party’s gazes for a good moment, before she glanced back at the cleric. “Chancellor Roderick, this is—”

 

“I know who he is,” the Chancellor said snidely, cutting off Sister Leliana, who didn’t so much as allow even her gaze to flicker in response. She merely fell silent and looked neutral. Curious, still, but in the way of someone who was, at best, idly interested, not in the way of a someone with a horse in the race.

 

She went up even higher in Mahanon’s estimation. Usually, he didn’t think much of _shemlen_ spies—especially Imperial ones, who were as obvious as they were eye-blisteringly dressed—except for some Orlesians, which Sister Leliana’s accent marked her as being.

 

And, of course, Qunari-trained spies were rumored to be _the best_ and most wide-spread, running the gamut from _Tal-Vashoth_ imitators, to freed slaves of the elf and _shem_ variety.

 

(Mahanon had never run into a member of the _Ben-Hassrath_ that _he_ knew of. Which, of course, _did not_ mean that he’d _never_ run into a member of the _Ben-Hassrath_.)

 

“As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution.” The Chancellor turned his practically petulant scowl on the startled Seeker.

 

“ _Order me_?” Cassandra said with disbelief so deep, there was barely any offense in it. At first. Then she all but sputtered with clear disgust: “ _You_ are a glorified clerk! A bureaucrat!”

 

“And _you_ are a _thug_ ,” the Chancellor enunciated with the same dismissive and haughty tone as before, waving a hand at Cassandra before glancing up at the sky. For a moment, concern that had nothing to do with giving orders creased his pale face. Then his expression hardened and he looked at Cassandra once more. “But a thug who _supposedly_ serves the Chantry.”

 

“We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know,” Sister Leliana interjected calmly, but just a tad tightly. And thankfully before Cassandra could be goaded into a shouting match or worse with the unwise and unwary Chancellor.

 

“Justinia is _dead_ ,” the Chancellor said, his voice hard, but brittle. Mahanon was surprised to see very real grief peering from the cracks in his irritating façade. “We _must_ elect a replacement, and obey _her_ orders on the matter! And her _first_ order as Divine-Presumptive will _surely_ be the avenging of her predecessor’s assassination by this—this _person_!”

 

“Do not speak of him as if he is not here,” Solas said softly, but with clear and unambiguous warning. When Mahanon glanced at the mage, startled, it was to see those icy eyes resting on the Chancellor, neither curious nor studying, just . . . flat. “With neither cause to help, nor promise of his freedom or even a fair trial, he has slain demons and wraiths at the sides of your allies. And closed the Rifts from which those demons arrived, as well. _Do not_ speak of him as if he is not here.”

 

In the silence that followed, the already pale Chancellor paled further, glanced from Leliana to Cassandra—and even to Varric who shrugged and winked—then, finally, to Mahanon, who was flushed and embarrassed and _furious_ , for reasons he couldn’t explain. Though he wanted to shift away from Solas’ still, but coiled presence, he did not. He merely met the Chancellor’s gaze as impassively as he could. The other man’s eyes were less angry and offended, now . . . more weary and lost.

 

“You shouldn’t even _be_ here,” the Chancellor sighed, leaning heavily on his makeshift table and shaking his head. When he finally looked up again, it was at Cassandra, who’d moved closer to the table. “Call a retreat, Seeker. Our position here is hopeless.”

 

This time, there was no command in his voice, just a dearth of confidence and options that made _back to the wall and neck on the line_ seem like an idyllic holiday, in comparison to the situation they were now facing.

 

“We can stop this before it’s too late,” Cassandra insisted, her voice still angry under full fathom five of control. As tempered, but impatient for decisive action and resolution, as the rest of her. “We still have options.”

 

“And what options are those? How can we even begin to stem this tide of evil bent on devouring our world one Rift at a time?” the Chancellor asked, still meek with despair and defeat. He shook his head once more. “You won’t survive long enough to reach the Temple, even with all your soldiers. It would be . . . a massacre. Throwing innocent, valiant lives away on a lost cause.”

 

“We _must_ get to the Temple. We must _stand_. Charge the enemy. It’s the quickest route,” Cassandra persisted, with a stony, determined lack of give. Mahanon felt Sister Leliana’s gaze on him and met it with a raised eyebrow and a tiny shrug. And an even tinier smile, wry, but encouraging. He would have her back on whatever plan or contingency she made that seemed more reasonable than craven inaction or suicidal bravery.

 

“Quickest, Cassandra, but not the safest,” she said, her gaze ticking between Cassandra and the Chancellor. “Our forces can charge as a _distraction_ , while we . . . go through the mountains.”

 

Mahanon followed the Sister’s point toward the snow-covered peaks in the near-distance and frowned, shivering for a reason that went beyond the near-constant, marrow-deep cold he’d grown used to since leaving the Imperium for Southern Thedas.

 

“We lost contact with an entire squad on that path, Leliana. It’s too risky,” Cassandra said still stony, but with a bit more in the way of give, now. It was obvious that she valued Sister Leliana’s opinion far more than the Chancellor’s. Enough to at least listen and take suggestions under consideration, even if she didn’t like their probable outcome.

 

“Listen to me, and abandon this now! Before _more_ lives are lost!” the Chancellor said—pleaded, all his haughty posturing put aside. He thought, it was plain, in individual lives sacrificed. _Not_ as a true leader _had_ to think to be effective: expendable numbers, tactical advantages, and acceptable risks.

 

The Chancellor could not see beyond the inevitable collateral damages. Could not see _any_ loss of life as collateral, never mind a multitude of such losses.

 

And it was just as clear that _Sister Leliana_ did and Cassandra _could_.

 

They _both_ saw the larger picture, both recognized that they needed a uniting leader who could at least allow their trusted subordinates to think and decide and _act_ like mercenaries . . . even when said leader could not.

 

This uniting leader wasn't, it was apparent to them all, the Grand Chancellor.

 

And, as if to add drama to this realization, the Breach above the mountains crackled and sent out forks of green-gold lightning which struck the peaks joltingly enough to cause a brief avalanche, but thankfully did not strike nearby. The green-gold mist surrounding the sky-anchored phenomena seemed to roil and churn.

 

Mahanon only noticed this for a few moments before agony erupted in his palm and raced up his arm to the shoulder, where it lingered, as if deliberating on whether to spread to the rest of his left side.

 

After an eternal, fever-pitch crescendo, the agony retreated toward Mahanon’s palm quickly, leaving him gasping and clutching his left wrist. He glanced up at the Breach to see that whatever had caused the tear in the sky to flare up for those moments, it was now back to its state of normalcy, or whatever passed for normalcy with rents in the fabric of reality.

 

When Mahanon lowered his double-visioned gaze, it was to see them all looking at him with varying levels of consideration, expectation, and even fear. Except for Solas. He merely looked . . . distantly concerned and almost brooding. He held Mahanon’s numb, wide-eyed stare for several seconds before some expression, too quick to parse, flickered over his austere features.

 

“Are you all right, Hunter?” he asked gently, almost kindly. Mahanon blinked and grimaced a small, but probably ghastly grin.

 

“Give me a working definition of _all right_ , and I’ll gladly answer,” he husked out around a cough, masquerading as a rueful laugh. Solas’ thin mouth quirked in an almost-smile and his wintry eyes _nearly_ warmed.

 

Though not nearly as much as Mahanon’s face.

 

Clearing his throat, he looked down at the fading glow of his left hand and wiggled his aching-sore fingers.

 

“How do _you_ think we should proceed?” Cassandra asked, coming to stand in front of him, and Mahanon’s head whipped back up in gaping startlement.

 

 _You’re asking for_ my _opinion?_ he wanted to demand on the back of a tired and shrill laugh. And after that laugh, perhaps find a nice, quiet place to go to sleep for six days. Or until the Breach swallowed the entire world . . . whichever came second.

 

But that moment passed, as all moments do, and Mahanon found himself looking at the mountains again. Shivering again as something colder than cold, went straight to his marrow.

 

Not because the mountain was the wrong way to go, but because it was, without question, the right way. The _only_ way.

 

And . . . there were sure to be horrors. Beyond the many deaths that would buy them their chance at the mountain pass . . . there would be horrors. Beyond _anything_ Mahanon had witnessed or wreaked in any of his lives. . . .

 

There would be horrors.

 

He knew that to his marrow, to his heart, to the soul whose depths he’d never been interested in plumbing. Even back when he’d been the _other_ -boy, constantly shuttled from fresh misery to fresh misery with no recourse or power, he’d _always_ known that the only permanence was change. And the only change was in the _breadth and depth_ of life’s emerging horror and misery. The only luck was that _some_ weathered a less steep incline down than others.

 

Though, admittedly, sometimes the sudden slides were _far_ steeper and the new nadirs were far _deeper_ than any one person could imagine. Or survive.

 

After squinting at the mountains for another few moments—wondering almost idly if they would be his final fight, followed by a one-way trip into the Fade . . . wherein he’d no doubt meet an honor-guard of his many victims—Mahanon turned his calmest gaze to Cassandra. He had, he knew, her support in whatever choice he made, as well as Sister Leliana’s. The Chancellor looked as if he was about to be ill. Varric was staring up at the Breach as if he couldn’t take his eyes off the hideous wonder of it. And Solas. . . .

 

Mahanon fought another flush and ignored the mage’s open and unwavering regard.

 

“Use the mountain path,” he said, his voice croaking and hoarse, but firm. And, as with Solas’ intent perusal, he also ignored the ring in his very being that sounded like the fate of an entire world being decided and sealed.

 

#

 

“A moment, _Serah_.”

 

Mahanon had been staring after the embattled Cassandra as she’d marched off to give final orders to her lieutenants. Her strong shoulders had hunched at the Chancellor’s parting: “On your head be the consequences, Seeker,” and for a long moment, Mahanon’d had to fight the almost instinctive desire to leap on the man and throttle him until his weedy neck snapped. It would have been a mercy of the only kind Mahanon had ever been able to extend in any of his lives. And also worth it for the satisfaction of _that moment_ : when the scared, resentful expression on Chancellor’s officious face, _and_ the last of the light and life in his eyes settled to peace and stillness, the instant after his spine went _CRACK_. . . .

 

 _Later, perhaps,_ Mahanon had told himself wistfully, then striven to be content.

 

Now, he tore his gaze away from the Chancellor, and turned toward Sister Leliana’s soft, well-modulated voice. Toward this gentle use of one of the titles of address particular to his nation of birth . . . something his thick and common accent had made undoubtedly obvious.

 

And when he looked around, his matching and semi-sardonic _for you, Ser? As many as several,_ died in the wake of a gasp. It turned into a cough as Mahanon sucked in a cold draught of smoke-and-snow-scented air that rattled his tired lungs.

 

“Oh. . . .” he breathed, reaching out to accept his Dalish blades, in their multi-purpose holsters of flexible leather straps, from her gloved hands. His own left hand was shaking alarmingly and his vision was trebling with tears. Odd, that, since his injured leg was more sore than achy, now, and the headache, though still debilitating in idle moments, was merely another misery he’d adapted and grown used to.

 

So, _tears_ were . . . strange. Even alarming, in a buried, subterranean fashion.

 

As his hands closed on the hilts held out to him, he drew in a shaking breath. Upon sliding the left dagger halfway out of the adjustable holster—his own design, able to be worn at hip or shoulder, or dismantled, and strapped to the arms separately and concealed—he caught flashes of the sky and the green-gold Breach in the blade, itself. Then, a distorted glimpse of his own face, pale and bloody and dirty, with haunted, reddened green eyes.

 

When he resheathed the dagger and looked up at Sister Leliana once more, she was studying him with her pretty, unreadable eyes gone hooded. He nodded once, not bothering to hide the tears that coursed clean-er trails down his dirty-bloody cheeks, or his deep gratefulness.

 

“I am indebted, _Serah_ ,” was all he said—all he _could_ say. And with more sincerity than he’d said anything in the past six or seven years. Sister Leliana’s auburn right brow lifted a bit and she nodded back, allowing hints of a genuine smile to curve her lips.

 

“Not at all. They were doing no good locked in a cabinet with the other confiscated weaponry. Anyway, I had a gut-feeling that a pair of good Dalish daggers might soon prove . . . useful.”

 

Mahanon smirked a bit. “And you’re a woman who trusts her gut-feelings.”

 

“Implicitly. A . . . Chantry-sister without trustable instincts isn’t a . . . Chantry-sister for very long, no?” Sister Leliana gave him an opaque, if amused once-over and Mahanon let himself laugh for a few moments, which drew a wider, and still genuine smile from Justinia V’s Left Hand.

 

“I suppose I shall have to take your word for that,” Mahanon said, wry and bland. Then he strapped his grandfather’s blades on at his hips, over his filthy-bloody-dusty tunic and breeches. Then he took a moment to enjoy the sense of calm and completion that came with once more having all that was left of his family—as well as the only things on which he'd ever been able to fully rely—cool and ready at his sides once more.

 

But with a glance at the shortsword and dagger that had served him so well, he experienced another strange pang. It didn’t feel quite like nostalgia or sentimentality, though Mahanon had so little experience with those emotions, he couldn’t say for certain. Nor, when it came down to it, did he have the time or inclination to investigate.

 

Just then, Cassandra stalked past them in the other direction, toward the barred gates and the mountains beyond. She radiated frustration and consternation—worry—like heat-energy.

 

Mahanon met Sister Leliana’s eyes and she shrugged elegantly. And, her practiced and calculated charm quite aside, he decided that he liked her: at least as much as he liked anyone and rather more than he liked most. And certainly, enough that he hoped _she_ survived the day, even if he did not.

 

After all, the world needed, now more than ever, _more_ cool heads and clear visions . . . not fewer and less.

 

“I suppose we should be on our way,” he said, with another nod to Sister Leliana, this one businesslike. She gestured deferentially for him to follow Cassandra to the gates first, and he started to . . . then paused and turned back to the upended barrel on which his discarded weapons lay.

 

“ _Ugh_ ,” he sighed, ala Cassandra, and even if he hadn’t seen Sister Leliana smirk knowingly from the corner of his eye, he’d have definitely heard her raucous snort.

 

Ignoring his own blush yet again, Mahanon took up the dagger and shortsword, shoving the former into his belt and clutching the latter. With a final salute to Sister Leliana—sword smartly aimed up to the overcast sky and held before his left side, heels clicked together and followed by a shallow, but crisp bow: an enlisted Tevinter soldier’s salute to an officer or other unspecified superior—he then strode off after Cassandra and Varric. The former was already grumbling, and the latter was cheerfully chatting and flirting, in-between offhand comments to a stoic, poised Bianca.

 

As Mahanon passed Solas, who was now leaning against the low wall of the parapet like a man at his leisure, he gave the mage an opaque look of his own, challenging and disdainful, then kept walking. The elf-mage caught up to him in a few long strides, projecting smug, condescending amusement.

 

“Ah . . . of a sudden, you now trust me at your back, Hunter?” Solas inquired, in what for him was probably a playful tone. Mahanon’s mouth curved in a mirthless half-smile, but otherwise his affect remained untouched, his profile still and stony.

 

“No. But I trust Sister Leliana at _yours_.”

 

Then, he quickened his stride, near-instantly leaving the elf-mage in his tracks. But the other man’s low laugh—unexpected, brief, but sincerely delighted—kept pace with Mahanon easily. Even after it was more echo than actuality.

 

At least _this_ time Solas, with Sister Leliana in the rearguard, was far enough behind—and Cassandra and Varric were far enough _ahead_ —that Mahanon didn’t have to fight, and once again lose, to his own fierce blush. For once, he simply let his renegade face do as it saw fit, even as he chose not to examine its whithers and why-fors.

 

And ahead, lay the mountains . . . and the horrors which now kept them.

 

TBC


	6. The Mercenary Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which “Septimus” is conscientious about consent and _never_ overdressed for an evening out; he and Vel settle into their haphazard arrangement with a few hiccups and a _lot_ of sex . . . some of it in public places; and quite a bit of violence (not between them) is used as foreplay, but with time and familiarity and perspective . . . with _intimacy_ , that sort of foreplay might soon be left at the wayside. 
> 
> For Vel Rilienus _and_ “Filius Septimus,” the emphasis switches from the second word of the chapter title, to the third. A subtle shift, indeed, but momentous in its own quiet way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Wake-up sex **with explicitly given, blanket consent**. BDSM leanings with only bare prior negotiation. Exhibitionism. Public teasing/fondling. Instigated and implied fight and semi-public canoodling. Allusions to past violence and murder—with little or no remorse/a certain level of moral idiocy behind them—used as dirty-talk. Two people turned on by violence. A tiny bit of blood-play. Implied alcoholism. Mostly in that order.

 

**Chapter Five: The Mercenary Heart**

 

Vel woke up gasping and arching under a familiar weight—into a familiar body—even as he fought with all his determination not to execute a smooth and aggressive take-down before coming hard . . . with one final, possessive-aggressive thrust.

 

It wasn’t, all told, a terrible way to wake up, considering that once, Vel’d woken up beaten and bleeding in a small sector-gaol after a heist gone awry (due to a not unexpected betrayal by some shifty, fast-talking Antivan).

 

It still made him snarl to think of the many not-pleasant things he’d had to do to get out of that particular fix. And it had been, of course, the _last_ time he’d worked with another criminal for anything other than simple, straightforward gang-style violence and intimidation. And the very last time he’d attempted an actual heist.

 

But this . . . this was a _very good_ morning, as every morning had been since taking the Septimus Job, as Vel had come to think of the past three weeks of following around, guarding, taking care of, escorting around—carrying home, on some memorably drunken nights—and essentially living with Filius Septimus. Every morning since their first enthusiastic tumble—after which, Septimus had all but passed out by the time noon had come and gone, his body a limp, sodden puddle of satiation—had been some variation of this. Both by inclination and rather awkward, but earnest discussion of what was “acceptable” within the bounds of their mutually sought pleasures.

 

Even now, Vel blushed at the memory of that conversation. After the most amazing sexual experience of his young life, he’d simply watched Septimus sleep so soundly he hadn’t even snored. The other man hadn’t woken up until mid-afternoon . . . with a yawn, a stretch, and a lazy, yet blinding smile that appeared even before he opened his eyes.

 

“Hmm . . . still here,” he’d hummed happily, squinting up at Vel before closing his eyes again and going utterly boneless once more under Vel’s intent gaze and admiring hand. Septimus’ heartbeat had picked up rather a bit, even for a man who’d woken up, and Vel had smiled a little. Said smile had been unpracticed, and had been no doubt strange-looking . . . _unflattering and unsettling_ , but Vel hadn’t cared.

 

“Of course, _domine_ ,” he’d replied, letting his hand stroke a bit lower, but no lower than Septimus’ abdomen. With the sheets and coverlet on the floor, Septimus’ erection had been obvious—and gaze-commanding—from well before he’d awoken. “You’re hard again.”

 

Another hum, happy, but a bit petulant. “As has been known to happen, yes. I am. Quite distractingly so. The question becomes,” Septimus had murmured, his eyes fluttering open, all silver and storm even in the golden afternoon sunlight that had set the room aglow. They’d held _Vel’s_ wide, uncertain eyes pointedly. “The question becomes, my endearingly coy and surprisingly _shy serah_ , why you didn’t wake me up, or simply do something about it. Or wake me up _by_ doing something about it.”

 

When Vel had blinked, startled and rather aghast, Septimus had smirked wryly, his gaze and hand drifting down to take Vel’s prick in hand, hot and cleaving to his body as it had been.

 

“You’re not going to act like you don’t enjoy a bit of rough, first thing, eh? Drifting up from a sound rest to discover you’re on the precipice of an orgasm you didn’t even have to put _effort_ into?” When Vel had merely continued to gape while Septimus smirked and stroked, finally, the other man’s smirk had faded and his stroking had stopped.

 

“Alright,” he’d said with an exasperated, but fond sigh. “For future reference, you have my permission to wake me up by Rogering me out of Dreamland. I’ve enjoyed similar wakings in the past, and fully consent to and quite look forward to more in future. Shall I . . . take it as writ that the same will _not_ hold true for you, then?”

 

After another blink, Vel had blushed fiercely and dropped his gaze to Septimus’ chest. It had been covered in vivid, but not angry love-bites. In the moment they’d been given, each and every mark had resulted in a unique and delicious sound spilling from Septimus’ elegant throat and pretty lips. The sight and sense memories alone had been almost enough to make Vel lose his already fraying control.

 

Taking a shaking breath, he’d run the flat of his palm up to the center of Septimus’ sternum, then to his collar bone. Then to his throat. He certainly had _not_ imagined the sudden racing of Septimus’ elevated pulse nor the soft, shaking. indrawn breath. Nor had he imagined the dilation of chasm-black pupils until the storm-gray of those magnetic irises had been little more than a token outline.

 

“I said I would do anything you asked of me, _domine_ ,” Vel had reminded Septimus slowly, feeling his way through this discussion not by gut or machination, but by the resurrected beat of the mailed and mercenary, undead thing that had once been Vulpo Helvius’ heart. He listened patiently, even though it and he spoke vastly different languages and there was no interrelator to ease their communication. “And I would. I _will_. I’ll fuck you however you wish, whenever you wish, for as long as you wish. I . . . cannot imagine anything you do turning into something I _wouldn’t_ consent to. Unless you decided to dismember me or kill me.”

 

The admission had felt strangely painless and natural. Had seemed as obvious a thing to anyone with eyes and a brain, as Vel’s own enthusiasm and desire for _whatever pleasures_ Septimus chose to give him. Or take of him.

 

“That's dreadfully macabre . . . but comforting, I suppose. Still, I have no wish to end up with a dagger in my throat because your threshold for surprise is . . . not as high as you’d hoped!” Septimus had smirked, a bit tense and tight, then reached up to cup Vel’s cheek with his free hand, his thumb stroking gently and almost reverently. The other hand was quiescent, but still resting in a claiming clasp on Vel’s prick. Septimus’ eyes had been lust-blown, but solemn. “If this . . . arrangement continues, there are things I’ll wish to do with you and _to_ you—and wish _you_ to do with and to _me_ —which I’m . . . hesitant to leave unnegotiated, and to the whims of a moment of hasty passion. I don’t wish to hurt or frighten you, _nor_ do I wish to be maimed or killed while trying to broaden your horizons a bit. There’s certainly something to be said for taking things slowly, at least at first. Exploring and learning and enjoying. So, I suppose for now . . . blanket consent regarding how you’re allowed to wake me up will have to do. Until and unless we . . . know each other better. And anticipate a need for further and deeper discussion, at some later date. Does that work for you?”

 

Vel hadn’t been sure if it had. And not for him, but for Septimus. Aside from death or dismemberment, Vel had a fairly high threshold for discomfort, pain, and even agony. There had been no need to worry for or about him beyond his possibly injurious, possibly _fatal_ reactions to certain sorts of surprises. But as long as they continued to take things slowly for a bit in the beginning, Vel had been fine with whatever Septimus wanted to do, whatever he needed to take, however he needed to _have_. He had doubts, however, that his own naivete and inexperience would satisfy Septimus beyond the initial novelty of a new lover.

 

He just hadn’t quite known how to express that.

 

Vel had thought for so long, Septimus’ hand on his cheek had fallen away and his aristocratic face had begun to close off from disappointment and uncertainty. Strangely enough, the other man’s uncertainty had banished Vel’s completely. Had broken him free of his fight-flight-or-freeze stasis with a soft groan and a flutter of his eyelids as he’d let his hand rest more heavily on Septimus’ throat while his thumb stroked that rabbit-quick pulse tattooing visibly along Septimus’ jugular.

 

His other hand, he’d wrapped around Septimus’, which had started to release his prick with reluctant rue.

 

“I . . . would not object to being woken up that way, either. To you taking what you need from or desire of me. You . . . have my consent to and for _anything_ you desire, short of injuries that effect my ability to protect you, which result in my dismemberment, or might kill me. Whenever safety and circumstance permits, I’m yours in whatever ways you wish. Even, erm, if you want to . . . switch things up . . . to fuck _me_. I’ve never let anyone . . . erm. _That_. _Never_ done that. But I’d let _you_. I’d enjoy it _very_ much, I think. Though, _at first_ . . . perhaps don’t _wake me up_ that way, _domine_? For both our sakes’,” Vel had added with a grimace, knowing himself and his kill-happy instincts well enough to concede that point to Septimus.

 

The other man had been gaping up at him, a mirror of the Vel of several minutes prior.

 

“I . . . _you_ . . . that is,” Septimus had finally said, wide-eyed and wary, “I shall take that consent and trust, and honor them as best I can. I’ll _also_ take your curiosity and . . . open-mindedness under advisement. And I _promise_ to warn you well in advance before I attempt to fuck you. Does that suffice? Is it . . . acceptable, for now?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Splendid!” Septimus had resumed his stroking, his hand warm and tight under Vel’s and around his aching, leaking prick. His eyes had been beyond ravenous. Beyond drowning pools. Beyond Vel’s dull imaginings of what gazing into a true abyss might be like. “Is it . . . do you mind if I . . . are you averse to being marked? If not, am I . . . limited to marking places which are habitually covered by clothing? Rather, covered whilst one is clothed _and_ in a public place?”

 

At first, Vel’s only reply had been a soft, low moan. Then, he’d opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, and leaned down to nuzzle Septimus’ jaw and cheek. At his neck and at the shallow hollow at the base of his throat. The _scent_ of him, like musk and incense, clean sweat and lightning, had been intoxicating to the point that Vel had grown slightly dizzy from his purposeful immersion.

 

“You may leave your marks wherever _you_ wish, _domine_. And _wherever_ you leave them, I will wear them with pleasure and fond recall of their bestowal. Whether or not I bear them . . . I leave to your preference.”

 

The next low moan had come from Septimus, just before he’d claimed Vel’s mouth in a hard, bruising kiss—there’d been literal bruises, faint but there, around Vel’s puffy-red mouth, later—that had been both teeth _and_ tenderness. It hadn’t been long after that that Vel had found himself being pinned and marked and _ridden_.

 

 _Taken_ , and with no doubt as to which of them had been doing the taking, never mind whose prick had been in whose arse.

 

And since that morning, Vel had, indeed, been wearing Septimus’ _many_ marks all over his body. Even in areas where clothing could not hide them—and that was quite a few places, as winter finally gave way to a miserably damp spring.

 

 _This_ morning was shaping up to add _even more_ love-marks and bruises, welts and scratches to the colorful and healing roadmap that was Vel’s body. _This morning_ would be a _glorious_ morning, indeed: sharp and sweet and warm. Brighter than the sun in summer and exhilarating.

 

Vel, for once, refused to let his customary what-ifs and contingencies—plans and concerns and obsessive paranoia—get between him and the tight, receptive heat holding him, keeping him, and devouring him from the outside in, then back out again.

 

He saved all his willpower for prolonging this early morning _divertissement_. Didn’t open his eyes, since simply the sight of Septimus riding him with desperate abandon and wanton compulsion—every gorgeous and taut muscle of him strung tight and quivering, his head thrown back and elegant throat bared and surrendered—would’ve been more than enough to destroy even Vel’s considerable and iron self-control.

 

No, he simply gasped again, arched up slowly, letting his spine and muscles stretch a bit and limber-up. Then he grasped Septimus’ sweat-slippery hips and thrust up as he pulled down: driving himself deeper and harder into Septimus’ body to a series of breathless, high-sweet cries. Septimus’ whole body, hotter than a forge, shuddered and shook, tightened and released, only to tighten again. He hissed _yes_ and _please_ and _Vel_ with flatteringly earnest and appetite-whetting frequency. Let _Vel_ control the pace of their assignation for a bit. Let Vel change up his rhythm and speed and intensity as he saw fit, and took everything he was given as if Vel’s prick was Maker-given mana.

 

Encouraged Vel with dirty, shameless grinding and rasping, genteelly _filthy_ commentary about the “indescribable” perfection of Vel’s prick and the “native talent” with which he wielded it. Had Vel not already been so flushed from his pleasant exertions, he’d certainly have been embarrassed by his reaction to Septimus’ lavished praise.

 

Eventually, of course, well after Septimus’ praise and commentary had degenerated into grunts of pleasure and ravening, mounting _need_ , Vel could no longer resist opening his eyes to see the gorgeous sight above him.

 

Septimus was disheveled and sweaty, laid bare and ethereal as he rocked above Vel, all but bouncing on Vel’s prick with eager, nigh unstoppable, self-centered—at this point, _one_ of them was doing more taking than the other, and Vel knew that it was _not_ himself—and mind-blowingly _greedy_ appropriation. This was Filius Septimus at the apex of his most base cravings and basic desires: he cared for nothing beyond the pleasure he was taking, beyond riding that horse into the ground. He didn’t even care that, just judging on the wincing and noticeable whimpers in his own ecstatic and desperate cries, he was possibly doing himself damage in his exuberance.

 

Doing himself harm even _beyond_ than the thick edge of pain and hurt he seemed to sometimes prefer with his pleasures.

 

As gratifying and arousing as such enthusiasm was, it also discomfited Vel to think of Septimus harming himself for any reason, even if that reason made Vel feel warm and fizzy and _odd_ in places that had absolutely nothing to do with his prick or balls.

 

The thought of their assignations causing Septimus damage of any kind whatsoever made the bits of him that were still very much Vulpo Helvius—or at least the _other_ -boy’s persistent and annoying shade—doubt and falter and cringe.

 

But in the early morning light, pale-golden but grey at its heart, Septimus was no less a god, for all his pained desperation. His beauty was a palette of divinity-touched colors: pale, but warm bronzes and flushed olives, the nearly ghost-pale shade of his inner thighs under their hectic flush, and the purple-red of his pretty and touchable prick. _Circumsized_ , it was . . . a perplexing affectation among nobles which Vulpo Helvius had never come across among his _soporati_ and _liberati_ conquests. But as with every part of Septimus, his prick was utter perfection. The bitten, dusky-pink of his lips and the hectic-crimson of his cheeks and chest were perfection. The restful relief of his profusion of thick, glossy, chestnut hair. . . .

 

Perfection.

 

Septimus’ torso, sculpted and perfectly defined, was slick with sweat, the faint trail of hair leading down to his groin—growing darker and more defined as it went—glistened in the iffy light, catching occasional beads of sweat. Every muscle of him was quaking, his thighs clamped down on Vel’s sides so possessively and urgently, they must have ached, after holding so tight for so long. . . .

 

Vel’s hands had long since migrated to those thighs, which he found mesmerizing and seductive in every way, from their beginnings, down to the scarred knees at which they terminated. He squeezed those knees and licked his slightly-swollen lips, tasting the salt of sweat and tears, and the faint, bitter-tidal remnants of a middle-of-the-night _Antivan Hello._ One that’d left Septimus gasping and almost sobbing, and Vel licking his swollen-sore lips smugly.

 

Well . . . he’d been smug until Septimus had rolled them over with a growl and returned the favor with gusto. Vel remembered coming harder than he ever had . . . and then it’d been morning. And Septimus had been astride him and working him toward another cataclysmic release.

 

Septimus had lost and was continuing to, as ever, lose himself completely in his desires and needs. In their meeting—fulfillment—perpetuating. Vel was in awe of him. _Envied_ him.

 

In moments like _this_ —with Septimus’ body already being the very exemplar of the classically beautiful, masculine form, at its most inspired and graceful, as well as being limned by dawn’s showcasing light—Vel damned-near _worshiped_ Septimus. And was, especially _now_ —and increasingly, as their tenure together went on—willing to lay himself in part or whole on the altar of Septimus’ attention, affection, and lust.

 

To, at a moment’s notice and with little more than the look of unshielded hunger and bottomless craving that so often shone out at Vel—specifically and unambiguously _at Vel_ —and yet never ceased to surprise, thrill, and ensnare him.

 

“You are the most beautiful being ever, _domine_. The _most perfect_ ,” Vel said plainly, in a voice as rough as gravel, but with a tone as caressing as freshly-spun silk . . . and as raw. Septimus’ squinched-shut eyes fluttered open, landing on Vel’s face as fierce and ravening as a dragon on a peak, but light and gentle as a butterfly on a branch. “There is no god and no person higher. You are color and shape, form and force of which I had no inkling and for which I had no reference, but . . . here you are . . . _here you are_ . . . surrounding me in your fire and brilliance and _sweetness_. And I . . . I . . . _oh, domine, I_. . . .”

 

 _I am_ yours, were the final words Vel didn't get to say in that moment.

 

He could only manage rumbling, pleading groans after that. Septimus smirked and clenched around him tight-tight-tight, rocking and snaking his hips sinuously, his hands brazen and everywhere on his gleaming body. Precome ran from the neat-pretty tip of his prick in a clear, ceaseless stream. It wasn’t long before those libertine-hands finally found positions they favored too greatly to abandon: Septimus’ right hand was fondling his balls with a negligent and ungentle dearth of concern that made Vel choke on his own moans.

 

Septimus’ _left_ hand stroked his mark-spotted chest in an effortlessly seductive way, as it wandered from left nipple to right, then back again with pauses for prolonged pinches and near-punitive twisting.

 

All the while, he held Vel’s almost unblinking gaze, his own hot and keen . . . seemingly lit from within and arcing-crackling-flickering with eerie, silver light.

 

“The things you say, Vel Rilienus,” Septimus growled, snickering and dangerous . . . not at all angry, but possibly somewhat mad. “If you’re not more careful, I may just decide to _keep you_.”

 

This time, Vel’s groan was almost soundless. It was certainly breathless.

 

“Yes, I imagine you’d like that, wouldn’t you, _serah_? Being kept and taken whenever I have a craving to split myself open on you, or my cock gives a decisive twitch?” Vel’s eyes shut tight on Septimus’ deliciously dictatorial tone and sharply predatory expression. That expression was unmarred and unmoving—leavened only by the breathtakingly genuine affection in that flickering, desire-mad gaze. Those surprising glimpses beneath Septimus’ insatiable and varied libido made Vel’s pulse triphammer at temple and jugular . . . and made the back of his left rib-cage pound fiercely, as if something behind the prison of his bones wanted out after a long time penned in close darkness.

 

The next thing he knew—having blocked out everything but the focus and fortitude needed to keep himself from spending spectacularly, but without his _domine_ having given him permission or at least coming _first_ —salt-sweet-soft lips were capturing his clumsily and frantically. A dominant and utterly shameless tongue confounded his own and possessed his yielding mouth with no quarter or mercy given .

 

“One day, when I’m back on my feet and able to keep you in a manner that _befits_ such a singular _gem_ of a consort, I’ll see to it that you _never_ wear another scrap of clothing or covering. You’ll never again be clad in anything but my marks and my . . . hmm, _admiration_ ,” Septimus purred into another kiss, his bouncing slowing into dirty-hard grinding that made color and light explode on the back of Vel’s eyelids. “Though, I’m quite keen to see you in a bit of tasteful, minimalist jewelry I’d have commissioned for you: an intricate, finely-wrought platinum collar bearing the mark of my House. My subtle reminder, for those lucky enough to lay eyes upon you, so they don’t forget to whom you belong. And a heavy, plain solid-gold cock-ring . . . my _not-at-all-subtle_ reminder, so that _you_ don’t forget to whom you belong. Would _that_ also be acceptable, my _Serah_ Rilienus?”

 

“Please, _domine_ . . . _please_. . . .” Vel hissed, shaking and urgent as his control snapped. His eyes shut instinctively, and his hips and hands took on a life of their own. Septimus chuckled evilly, sitting up once more, arching his back like a sated cat as Vel bucked up hard into the tight-hot confines of his body. His large hands gripped and slammed the other man’s hips down to meet those bucking thrusts, the squelching-smacking-squishing sounds of their frenetic joining obscene and dinning and indelicate. Vel’s hoarse shouts were also an indelicate, but fitting counterpoint to Septimus’ eerie, keening wail as his body bore down _hard_ on Vel’s prick. His every muscle was clenching and convulsing almost to the point of pain, likely for both of them.

 

Septimus was coming . . . not hard and fast, but in slow and steady pulses that landed in scorching, regular spurts on Vel’s chest and stomach.

 

This, then, was among Vel’s most _favorite_ sort of marking.

 

With a soft, soundless gasp, Vel’s entire body clenched and relaxed. Then went electrified-stiff as he, too, came with a few final, brutal thrusts that made Septimus whimper as his own release tapered off. Then _shake_ as, not unusually, his first orgasm rolled into a second one that seemed to be as much agony as ecstasy. Septimus screamed and gasped, sobbed and shook as his body sought to unmake itself entirely, forcing this next release out of him in violent, brief bursts and spatters that seemed to have been drawn from his very core.

 

And Vel, bearing silent, unseeing yet all-feeling witness to such a divine unmaking, simply continued to come. For an hour or a day or an age: hard and fast, pleasure and pain, bliss and despair. Empyrean height and light . . . and chthonic and endless abyss. . . .

 

Vel was unconscious even before he stopped coming, and certainly before _Septimus_ finally did. And when the larger man collapsed on top of him in a similar state, heavy and limp and leaden, Vel didn’t so much as grunt or twitch.

 

Though he _did_ , ever so softly, _sigh_. And smile.

 

#

 

“. . . and so, I, of course, had to then _gently_ inform the poor dear that not only was donning such a _brassy_ shade of persimmon after winter solstice _gauche_ and _not-the-mode_ , but that on someone who was very much _not_ an autumn, it was _highly_ unflattering! Especially the flounced ruffles and tiered crinolines! _Eugh_!” Septimus shuddered, then sighed as if in some keen and long-lingering pain, then captured the queen of his mountainous, glowering, red-faced opponent, simultaneously putting the man’s king in check, as well.

 

A few moves later, it was mate, and the opponent looked, in a word, _murderous_.

 

Vel could only sigh, too, and think almost fondly, _this, again_ , as he rolled and loosened his seemingly relaxed shoulders. His long, outstretched legs tensed just enough that Septimus—whose free right hand rested lightly, but obviously high on Vel’s thigh, inclined inward and upward with casual, but possessive intimacy—gave him a reassuring squeeze that was _many_ things . . . but not at _all_ reassuring.

 

Vel was _good_ at spotting patterns in behavior and speech, and he and Septimus had, in the three and a half months of their association, played _this_ game before . . . very much not meaning the chess. But between that owning and dominant hand, the unspoken command to _stand down_ and _wait_ , and the likelihood of imminent violence. . . .

 

Not to mention the post-violence “cossetting” that Septimus seemed to enjoy lavishing on Vel. . . .

 

Well, it was small wonder that Vel was more than a little aroused.

 

Or, more accurately, _quite noticeably hard_ , if the stealthy double-take Septimus did when Vel shifted to relieve some of the delightfully discomfiting pressure of his slightly slouched-down posture was an indication. And even if _it_ wasn’t, the tightening of that elegant hand on his upper thigh certainly was. Indication _a-plenty_ , as it slowly migrated further up and in, said actions not quite hidden by the table or the iffy lighting of the crowded pub.

 

Vel didn’t even realize he was gazing so intently and unabashedly at Septimus until a few moments after that deft, clever hand made firm and promising contact with his balls.

 

Eyes like a flickering, backlit maelstrom met his with wicked, knowing hunger. With _promise_.

 

Letting out a slow, soft breath, Vel nodded once, shallow and slight, never breaking eye-to-eye or hand-to-balls-contact.

 

“At your signal, _domine_ ,” he murmured for Septimus’ ears only, dropping his gaze again in deference and with a semblance of infinite calm, even though he was thrumming inside and out. Under his skin and under Septimus’ teasing-testing hand.

 

From the very corner of his vision, he could see Septimus lick his full lips and exhale shakily. Then he returned his attention to his opponent who, after a minute of silent and fuming disbelief at his loss, rose from his seat to loom over table and champion.

 

Septimus and Vel followed his ascent with bemused gazes. Really, the man was just _unrealistically_ _large_. Vel wondered in passing if he had Qunari ancestry. He’d have certainly fit in among the fearsome ranks of the _Beresaad_ , with a bit of war-paint and armor.

 

“So, shall we settle the matter of our little wager and its fulfillment?” Septimus asked in his most flighty, innocent, and merrily good-natured voice. It was deceptively harmless and foppish, that assumed tone and temperament, but the glowering giant didn’t seem to be buying it. Or even noticing it. Vel tilted his head back a bit more just to keep a reliable bead on the brute, even as his body subtly shifted in preparation to _move_. “I do, so, _hate_ to be blunt, but I do have other obligations to—”

 

“You’re a bloody-damned- _cheat_ , you mincing, preening, overdressed popinjay!” the big man sputtered in a voice like boulders rolling down a gravelly incline. Vel’s brows lifted slightly in amusement and beside him, the reigning champion of public house-chess stiffened and scoffed.

 

“ _Overdressed_!” Septimus protested with genuine offense, the hand which wasn’t fondling Vel’s balls fluttering up to his indigo-swaddled chest to light there with callused fingertips. Vel knew his job well, knew that it was to keep his focus, predict all possible outcomes, and keep his client safe and satisfied.

 

And yet, Vel _couldn’t_ seem to keep his _eyes_ _off_ this unexpected prize, who was proving ever more eager to share a bed—or a wall, or a convenient desk, or a sofa-back, or a random, semi-public corner—with his hired muscle.

 

“I’ll have you know that I put careful time _and_ deliberation into this outfit, _serah_! Have you _any_ idea how difficult it is for a _summer_ , specifically a _late August,_ to find just the _right_ shades of twilight-indigo and firmament-cobalt to set off his complexion, rather than clash with it or wash it out entirely?” Septimus sniffed, haughty and vindicated, before whipping an unnecessary trailer of attached blue scarf over his bared left shoulder. Vel bit back a grin and simply shifted a bit, pushing himself more firmly into Septimus’ still-firm grip. He was rewarded with a bordering-on-cruel squeeze that forced a desperate and unambiguous sort of moan from his lips, just before he licked them.

 

The giant chess-player glanced at Vel, then did a double-take of his own, his eyes drifting down to where Septimus was teasing Vel’s unconcealed rager of a hard-on.

 

The giant’s mouth twisted in a laughably prim moue of distaste and shock, and his scowl went from merely _murderous,_ to yes-definitely-going-to-try-a-spot-of-murder-forthwith.

 

And even though the giant’s first move was telegraphed rather amusingly far in advance, Vel still felt his usual marrow-deep rush at impending violence. Magnified, though, by Septimus’ hand ceaselessly working his prick and balls for the eternal, slowed-down seconds between Vel predicting the giant’s decision and intent to murder them both over a (rather large) wager, and the giant’s melodramatic flipping of the wobbly table between them.

 

Septimus started a bit, his hand freezing on Vel’s prick as his wide, gray eyes followed flying castles, horses, and pawns. The crowded pub around them quietened nearer at hand, the crowd withdrawing to a safer distance, so as not to get pulled into what was obviously about to be a fight, but paying them no mind otherwise.

 

In the relative silence that followed, Septimus sighed, wearily-genteel and put-upon. “That wasn’t even _my_ chess-set, you savage. I’ll have you know I begged it off the barkeep for a few hours and now, she’ll probably _never_ let me do so again!”

 

The sound the giant made in response started as a growl and ended as a low roar. Then he reached for Septimus with one huge, ham fist.

 

In that same instant, everything—even his erection, and his own lion’s-roar of _need_ singing throughout and sensitizing it—beyond his purpose ceased to exist for Vel. _Vel_ ceased to exist for Vel. All that remained was the job that needed doing, and in pursuit of that, whatever it took to complete it.

 

He was already standing. Putting himself between Septimus and danger. And _moving._ Falling upon the giant like a wave of destruction . . . eager to earn his as-yet unpaid and unnegotiated fee, with all the glee and satisfaction of a small child on his name-day.

 

#

 

Pristine and pulled-together, and bloody-sweaty and disheveled, respectively, Filius Septimus and Vel Rilienus tumbled out of the pub’s side exit, into the brief, relatively lit alley between the pub and the curio next door.

 

Vel could only hold on, arms tight around Septimus’ neck, and let himself be herded onward. Not toward the avenue, but deeper into the single-egress alley. Deeper into the not-very-deep shadows. The sounds of laughter and conversation weren’t distant at all, and Vel knew that if he looked toward the other end of the alley, he would see patrons lingering for a bit of fresh air and space.

 

He knew that _if_ he looked, he’d likely also find those patrons staring with unabashed prurience at this impromptu, but not unexpected public assignation.

 

Then those thoughts were jolted away when Septimus slammed Vel against the wall of the curio hard, with his solid, strong body and the merry jingle of all the coin the now nearly-dead giant had been carrying. He ground against Vel with pointed and challenging aggression.

 

He smelt and tasted of hours and bottles worth of middling wine and escalating tension: sweet-tart and slightly acrid.

 

As ever, he made Vel’s throat dry and his mouth water. _As ever_. . . .

 

Vel could only moan as that mouth claimed and took and demanded _all_. Could only clutch at those marvelous shoulders and _submit,_ even as he tried to keep up. His aching, slightly battered body was pliant and yearning, under and against Septimus’.

 

The hard-on that hadn’t remotely wilted during the entertaining bit of pugilism prior was all sweet, dull ache and _need_ against Septimus’ own erection. Vel moaned and his body cried out in anticipation of what was likely to and _had frequently happened_ next.

 

He would be pushed to his knees without hesitation and his mouth occupied the instant it opened. Septimus would take and use and commandeer that mouth with neither finesse nor gentility. With unhesitating ownership. With one securing, restraining hand around Vel’s throat . . . ever careful not to do more than bruise extravagantly. At the same time, his pretty, practically-purple prick would be testing Vel’s gag-reflex with his relentless and implacable resolve, until he passed that warning threshold with no incident, and was driving partway down Vel’s throat.

 

And so it would go, until Septimus came down said throat. Or on Vel’s face. And Vel would, as he had quite often, come in his breeches as Septimus massaged his throat . . . or smeared his come all over Vel’s face until it was covered and anointed. Assuming Vel hadn’t already come simply from the burning intensity of Septimus’ piercing, steady gaze, that was. From the rightness, satisfaction, and contentment that came with his utter submission to whatever Septimus chose to give him.

 

And then . . . back to Septimus’ flat for “cossetting”: a goblet or two of wine to relax Vel before Septimus efficiently checked him over for serious injury, then drew him a hot bath if no such injuries were found. Then, when Vel had gone both gone prune-y and blinky, it was out of the narrow, copper tub and a quick pat-dry, before being hustled to bed. If Septimus was in a mood—and he almost _always_ was—foreplay disguised as a massage would surely turn into slow, _hard_ , intensifying, multi-positioned _fucking_ that Vel had been addicted to from the first.

 

From the very first time Septimus had prepared him (a mere three mornings past their initial negotiations of what was acceptable in their _arrangement_ ) with exquisite care and talent and dedication, to that first brighthotsharp, revelatory thrust and the subsequent fullness when Septimus’ had finally hilted inside him, it’d felt like a homecoming. Even to someone supposedly jaded beyond a need for such concepts.

 

From the way Vel had been unable to stop shaking and weeping afterwards—as well as after the first dozen-plus times, despite Septimus’ sweet kisses, sheltering arms, and whispered concern—to the increasingly world-shattering, sacred-profane takings of his body that’d happened at least twice daily, since, Vel had never felt more _right_. Never felt more like he’d finally found his true place in _himself_ , in his _skin_ , and in this _world_.

 

Septimus would, as was _the mode_ of their evenings, put his back into taking Vel apart for most of the night. Until Vel was finally coming dry, and too wrecked, sore, and sated to do more than huff in protest when Septimus rolled off and out of him with a pained, equally wrecked groan. Even as Vel was still fighting winces and whimpers over the ever-present ache—and the startling sense of _emptiness_ —that followed Septimus pulling out suddenly, he wouldn’t resist when the other man cudgeled them both onto their sides, into their usual sleeping positions.

 

Once he was spooned tight behind Vel, he’d drape his heavy arm over _Vel’s_ arm and side—murmuring praise and endearments between lazy nape-nuzzles and biting shoulder-kisses—then drop into a deep sleep. But not before Vel had managed to align their arms and link their fingers.

 

Grinning a grin he’d be too tired, drained, and come-stupid . . . too _happy_ to fight, Vel would simply _be_ in Septimus’ arms. He would _exist_ for no other reason than the other man’s breath, warm and even on his neck. Than immersing himself in that perfect embrace and perfect presence. He would clutch at the other man’s protective hand, tightly and possessively . . . _keeping_ Septimus, and _safeguarding_ him, too. Assuring his continued contentment, his every expectation—his deeply-held _hopes_ , had Vel the power.

 

Thus committed, he would lay wakeful, watchful, and _grateful_ until dawn, then eventually drift off into Vulpo Helvius’ silly, soft, resurrected dreams.

 

It had become a pattern, all of that. And Vel had always been _very_ good at recognizing and exploiting patterns. Now, however, there was the added dimension of being able to _appreciate_ them, as well. For their own sake and the sake of what they might someday represent.

 

But for now, in the dark of the alley, he gazed serenely up into Septimus’ drunk-focused eyes, and smiled: his usual, pained grimace-grin. Septimus, however, didn’t return it, for once. He actually frowned a bit and came over reluctant. Almost meek. He even eased his body back from Vel’s, putting a few centimeters between them, but shivering as Vel’s hands slid down to his chest . . . lingering with reverence before dropping to his sides.

 

“ _Domine_?”

 

“Are you . . . terribly hurt from that ill-conceived fracas, _serah_?”

 

Vel’s brows shot up in surprise. “Hurt? I suppose. But terribly? No. My mouth aches and I’ll be feeling that lucky headlock he got in for a few days, yet . . . but it could’ve ended far worse. Wasn’t _likely_ to, he was so slow and obvious. But things could have gone _much_ worse. This . . . was a good fight.” He shrugged dismissively. Septimus snorted and smirked.

 

“I simply _adore_ your confidence and faith in your abilities! It borders on towering hubris, but that you so far have yet to be proven wrong!”

 

“May I get on my knees for you, _domine_?” Vel requested with his own brand of meekness, sincere and unassuming. Septimus’ eyes widened and narrowed in a flutter of dark lashes, and his creaking, needy moan was thrilling. Humbling and encouraging. “May I suck your cock, now?”

 

Septimus made a choked, gargling sort of grunt then barked a disbelieving laugh. “You . . . are trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

 

“You’ve found me out.”

 

That pouty, wicked mouth twitched up into a near-smile. “Well, of course, I did. You’ve _no_ bloody skill at dissembling, sad to say. You wear your desires on your sleeve and in your mesmerizing eyes. _And_ you apparently have no hesitation when it comes to _voicing_ those aforementioned desires—every ounce of your strange, un-self-conscious purity shining like a beacon. . . .”

 

“My greatest desire by far is to please you in whatever way you wish, _domine_ ,” Vel said truthfully, though it was not a direct reply to Septimus’ statement. It was certainly confirmation of it, however. As was Vel’s attempt to slide down the brick wall at his back, to his knees, to give himself over to Septimus’ fierce and determined taking.

 

But Septimus stopped him before he could do more than slouch down an inch or two, hauled him back up and kissed him, hard-soft, then hard-soft again . . . lingering and laden with meaning that Vel was too inexperienced and lacking in subtlety to read.

 

Finally, Septimus let them both up for air, even as he ground against Vel slowly and with increasing hunger. He held Vel’s gaze with intent that was palpable, if not definable, and _Vel_ simply held himself open and ready, submissive and compliant. Septimus finally hummed and leaned his forehead against Vel’s. He stole a short, teasing kiss that stung and smarted as he drew lightly on the bloody split in Vel’s lower lip.

 

Vel’s corresponding moans were so loud, he couldn’t even hear the pounding pulse in his ears over them, for a little.

 

“Just now, you taste of blood and viciousness.” Septimus nipped a final time—with vicious playfulness, himself—at Vel’s once more freely bleeding lip, then rumbled with more than a touch of wanton delirium. “Of mayhem and mercilessness.”

 

“Oh. Er . . . sorry?”

 

“I _liiiiike_ it and I am _drunk on you_ ,” Septimus purred, clearly still a bit inebriated and sexily smug. The tip of his tongue caught the thin dribble of blood from Vel’s lip, halfway down his chin. “I _like_ when you taste like _your_ blood and my _come_. Like kissing you until those tastes are more memory than fact. I like that you’re willing to bleed in my service then get on your knees for me after as if _you’re_ the one who’s unworthy, and yet still being rewarded. _I like the way you gaze at me,_ as if I’m the well-spring of your deepest desires and most potent ecstasy.”

 

Vel had to fight a desperate battle to keep his arms still at his sides. “I . . . am pleased that _you’re_ pleased with me, _domine_.”

 

“You truly _are_ , aren’t you?” Septimus mused, his mercurial mood shifting visibly, from molten and mindless, to ponderous and almost perplexed. “You _can_ be such a violent, raging animal at a moment’s notice, _serah_ , and yet . . . here you are, so submissive and obedient for me, and _only_ me . . . patiently and eagerly waiting to be on your knees and at my mercy. Taken hard with my hand on your throat, mere feet from a widely-traveled avenue, and in plain view of anyone and everyone who passes by. . . .”

 

“Yes, _domine_ ,” was Vel’s earnest, hopeful, and unadorned reply. And: “Of course, _domine_.”

 

“ _Is_ that what you need, then? To prove to any miscreant who happens by that you belong to _me_ , and that it’s _my_ touch and desires, _my_ prick and my _taking_ of you from which you derive such shameless and base satiation?”

 

 _Yes, domine_ , Vel said once more, with his gaze—with his entire being. Wanting only to be allowed to kneel and take whatever he was given.

 

Septimus’ expression flickered with confusion and uncertainty.

 

“Yes, _domine_ ,” Vel said again, this time aloud, though barely. It was a ghost of a whisper, a mere shaping of swollen-bleeding lips. And Septimus now looked patently overwhelmed. As if discovering the true nadir of a not-so-middling pit, or the full fathoms of a seemingly shallow bog.

 

Or perhaps as if realizing that the diverting and amusing bit of quandary he’d taken up on a whim was actually a June-puzzle: deceptive, shifting, and unsolvable.

 

Septimus shivered and sighed, looking off into the darkness to his left. To his right, on the sidewalk, the conversation of the patrons who’d lingered at the mouth of the alley had ceased. They’d probably grown bored when no show had been immediately forthcoming, and gone back into the pub. “ _Why_ , Vel? Will you tell me, now, after these many weeks, _why_ that is?”

 

Vel frowned in thought, his brows wiggling as they tried to furrow and lift at the same time. Septimus looked at him again, tormented and hopeful, simultaneously.

 

“I . . . I’m an animal, yes. And a monster, too, sometimes. I have no illusions about that nor does it bother me to own what I’ve let myself be shaped into. It hasn’t for a very long time, and yet. . . .” Vel’s mouth quirked as he continued to seek the right words. The ones that Septimus would understand and either be content with . . . or disgusted enough to finally turn Vel loose. “It is . . . distressing to me to lack . . . purpose. Meaning. Direction. _You_ , and keeping you safe and alive and . . . _happy_ . . . these objectives have become my meaning and purpose. My direction. I’m _still_ an animal and a monster. I probably always will be. It’s my nature now, and I don’t foresee anything mitigating or bettering that nature. But because of you . . . I am . . . a _necessary_ animal and monster. A validated one. One who serves a purpose. Serves _your_ purpose. Serves _you_. And I find that I am . . . content with that.”

 

Septimus studied him for a long while, his eyes deep and dark in the shadows that kept them.

 

“You get off on being a monster,” he said, a mere statement of fact and clarification, not an accusation. Vel shrugged.

 

“I get off on being _your_ monster, yes. Anything that came before, or exists beyond that, is now simply survival and getting ahead. Nothing more.”

 

Septimus blinked, and something in his wary-weary expression and tormented eyes softened. “How is it that you _can_ be such a monster and yet be so . . . sweet and pure and honest? So . . . devoted and generous? Least of all to a drunkard and wastrel, who gets into dangerous situations and fights merely because he enjoys the delightful opportunities for . . . the fantastic and _intense_ bit of rough that comes immediately thereafter? Not to mention the, er, _cosseting_ that ensues once he gets you prone on a proper bed?”

 

The distance between their faces—their mouths—was heated and shaking and famished. Too wide. The air between their bodies was a good deal narrower . . . and far, far greater. To help mitigate it with contact that was hopefully not too presumptuous, Vel placed his hands on Septimus’ hips, neither tugging him closer, nor preventing him from taking the initiative to move closer of his own volition. He simply let his hands rest there, as if they’d never been or belonged anywhere else.

 

“You _need_ me. You want _me_. And if one of the ways in which you need and want me, is when I taste and reek of fighting and blood and murder . . . that isn’t something I object to or with which I have the slightest problem.” Vel took a few moments to let his brain catch up with his stated truth, then nodded, holding Septimus wide, startled gaze. “What there is of me to be had, _domine_ , you own. I am _your_ monster, now. You are free to do with me as you will and make use of me as you see fit.”

 

Septimus groaned quietly, looking down and leaning into Vel heavily.

 

“That,” he began carefully, slowly, “is nothing less than everything I’ve ever wanted to hear.”

 

“You . . . don’t sound pleased about that,” Vel noted, breathless and numb with a sense of impending loss. He fully expected Septimus to back away. Move away. Walk away.

 

He’d been expecting that from the very first. Even as the _other_ -boy, who lurked so close to the surface these days, spread his pathetic hopes and dreams, like a pervasive cancer, throughout Vel’s streamlined consciousness.

 

Vel _expected_ to be cast off and aside, as he had been by everyone who’d ever mattered. To _lose_ , as had been the _leit motif_ of both his lives, to date.

 

But when Septimus looked up, his eyes, though still a bit mad with desire and drink, were softer than ever and brimming with emotions Vel could not read, having never seen them directed at him before.

 

“ _You_ are a mess, _serah_ ,” Septimus decided, leaning in to steal a teasing, then thorough and once more bloody kiss. It was _mostly_ tenderness, but with the occasional scrape and anchoring of intent teeth in the bleeding wound. “A flailing, lost, _addictive_ calamity and a _mess_ ,” he exhaled breathlessly, finally smiling on Vel’s injured, aching mouth. His breath came in ever-faster huffs, puffs, and whooshes. “But you’re very right about one _extremely_ important thing: _you are mine_.”

 

Vel whined, desperate and soft . . . _please, domine_ and _yes, yours_.

 

Septimus chuckled, edgy and affectionate, then pressed against Vel with restrained aggression. When Vel began to writhe and whimper, Septimus stepped back a bit and pulled Vel away from the curio wall. Not into his arms, but down the short alley and into the flickering torchlight mere feet away . . . out of their not-very-private bit of privacy and onto the narrow sidewalk on which the pub sat.

 

Vel blinked and shuddered as his instinct and awareness adjusted to the motion and light of the avenue, but his dazzled gaze never left Septimus’ chasm-deep eyes. In the cheerful-safe torchlight, the gray of that lowering and electric maelstrom was also golden. Heated and dancing.

 

“Despite all evidence to the contrary, I _do_ take care of what’s mine, Vel Rilienus,” Septimus promised with the ring of an oath, his entire being bent and directed at Vel even as he led the way down the busy, lively avenue. Reality was, for Vel, a riot of light and shadow in dizzying turn as he tried to think past the haze of his own disorienting desire and exhaustion. Septimus was, as ever, his point of stability, sure and undaunted. So, Vel, for his part, let himself be towed along, his large, talented, taker’s-hand held unquestioningly in Septimus’. And when the other man spoke again, an unfamiliar burning-twisting ache began in Vel’s chest. Built slowly and steadily into a bittersweet, breathless clench-release-repeat that would turn out to be perpetual. “Rather, I _shall_ , henceforth, take care. _Especial_ care, even. On my very life, my dear _serah_ , I shall take _far_ better care of such a curious and lovely gift as I have been given—as has stumbled so _trustingly_ into my care and keeping—than ‘ere I have.”

 

That flickering, sharp-soft, keen-kind, calm-storm gaze smoldered back at Vel briefly, all fire and faith and promise.

 

“Come along, then, and don’t dawdle, my sweet, strange, and _endearing_ monster. The sooner we’re home, the sooner I can cosset you, then put us _both_ to bed.”

 

~#~

 

 

 

ARTZ of Dorian Pavus/Rilienus | Mahaonon Lavellan in their signature sexual and romantic dynamic, by [Beckily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckily)!

 **Sources:**[SFW](https://beckily.tumblr.com/post/181761601712/the-tumbler-version-of-a-picture-i-did-of) | [NSFW](https://dame-life.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/images/b88e5ed267cdf1811a8b.png)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT END NOTES:
> 
>  **NEW!!!:** Now, featuring ARTZ of Dorian Pavus/Rilienus | Mahaonon Lavellan in their signature sexual and romantic dynamic, by [Beckily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckily)! [SFW](https://beckily.tumblr.com/post/181761601712/the-tumbler-version-of-a-picture-i-did-of) | [NSFW](https://dame-life.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/images/b88e5ed267cdf1811a8b.png)
> 
>  
> 
> Per [Hotot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot):
> 
> “it’s got Style  
> it's got Grace  
> Vel Will Kick U in the FACE  
> while pondering it eloquently” 
> 
> And **that** , my fine friends, is what’s up. _Werd._
> 
> /note


	7. Of Two Dooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mahanon Lavellan and his Spectacular Glowing Hand of Destiny, as well as his new companions, travel into the mountains to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. There to confront the looming and certain Doom of their Age. Meanwhile, seven years prior to that, Vel Rilienus discovers that having someone compelling—if chatty, snarky, and strangely, disconcertingly _affecting_ —to wrangle and safeguard, when he isn’t discouraging myriad comers, has become more than a mere perk. It’s become a foundation and direction. A purpose to which he can dedicate himself solely. A restructured world-view to which Vel has adapted and with which he has rolled. And why not? Despite his common sense and the likely doom that’s _always_ impending, he’s let himself rely upon something besides expected misery. “Perks” are temporary, distracting idylls that ultimately lead nowhere. But this arrangement with “Filius Septimus,” this . . . _happiness_ is a private paradise . . . a wish that Vulpo Helvius’ resurrected heart has made . . . a _dream_ from which Vel Rilienus won’t let himself awaken. An illusion of which he will not fight free for the simple reason that _he chooses not to._
> 
> As ever, reality has a different agenda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Suicidal ideation, if you squint. Discovery of major betrayal. Outliers of heavy angst and plot-stuff in the upcoming chapter. The Bacon quote, and the paraphrasings that come with it, seems apropos to both halves of the chapter, so pardon me for sticking it in there, seemingly willy-nilly.

 

**Chapter Six: Of Two Dooms**

 

**“** **Mahomet cald the Hill to come to him. And when the Hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said; ‘If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the Hill.’”—Sir Francis Bacon, _Essays_**

 

Unfortunately, for the peace of Mahanon’s weary and mono-focused mind, and his sense of probable effectiveness, Sister Leliana was only with them partway up the trail into the Mountains. Seemingly only to get a better look at what lay ahead for the party.

 

Considering the stressed and strained set to her entire mailed form . . . the verdict wasn’t terribly cheering, even for such a seeming optimist.

 

With a grim expression on her lovely face, she moved past Mahanon—she’d long-since caught up with him, and now, Solas was bringing up the rear in contemplative silence—and Varric, to Cassandra, with whom she spoke briefly.

 

Cassandra paused and nodded once, tersely, her shoulders slumping for a moment. Then she held out her arm for Sister Leliana to grasp, and their gazes met, steady and knowing: equals who may not have always agreed, but whose mutual respect had been earned and won and never let down.

 

It was clear that they did not expect to see each other again. At least not on this side of the Fade.

 

But Sister Leliana quirked a quick, wry smirk, and with a jaunty salute, started back down the trail. She patted Varric on the shoulder with bluff camaraderie as she passed and spared a polite nod for Bianca, then paused only for a few moments as she drew even with Mahanon, once more.

 

“You’ll take care of them, won’t you?” she asked so softly, he barely heard her over the wild whispering of the wind. But he nodded without hesitation, as that wind blew a swirl of gritty snow into his face, causing him to blink and squint.

 

“For as long as I’m alive, I shall do my best to keep them so, as well, Sister Leliana. I only ask that you keep yourself alive, in return,” he added just as quietly, inclining his head to her. Sister Leliana’s smile softened and twitched.

 

“Simply _Leliana_ will do. And you have a generous heart, _Serah_ , to concern yourself with the welfare of your former jailor,” she observed, avoiding making any sort of promise. Mahanon smiled, recognizing his own tactics easily and feeling unaccustomed fondness for another person who wasn’t Deshanna, or. . . .

 

“Not at all. It is merely that the loss of so capable a . . . Chantry-sister is distressing, to me. Wasted talent and competence always makes me dyspeptic and rather irritable.” He shrugged and let his own smile soften and twitch. Slip. When he held out his arm, she clasped it, cold and strong and firm. Her sea-blue eyes were curious and assessing, but she didn’t ask him any of the questions he sensed waiting on her tongue. “Maker guide your hand, Leliana.”

 

“And may Andraste’s protection shield you all,” she returned with a final nod, then continued back down the path, with a respectful nod for Solas, who mirrored it exactly.

 

Mahanon watched Leliana dwindle into the distance quickly, a slim, gray-mailed specter, occasionally obscured by snow. He only noticed Solas’ approach with absent attention and token irritation.

 

“You fear for her,” the mage said. Mahanon sighed, rubbing his tired eyes and dirty face.

 

“I fear for _all_ of us. But, yes.” He met that pale, assessing gaze and held it for a few moments before turning back up the ascending path. “I fear for Sister Leliana, most of all. At least in this moment. True Believers are always the first to die. I suppose I’m . . . not used to seeing that as a _loss_.”

 

“To die in pursuit of an objective that gives her life shape and meaning is, I sense, the way she would _wish_ to die, had she the choice of how,” Solas said, almost kindly. Mahanon snorted.

 

“Small comfort that is to those left behind in the aftermath.” The bitterness in Mahanon’s voice was unhidden . . . slipped out through the cracks of his long-held façade. He found himself thinking of Ateia Helvius for the first time in several years. He rarely allowed himself to turn-over his past lives unless Deshanna asked it of him for some obscure reason that was likely more “spiritual growth” nonsense.

 

It really wasn’t surprising to find himself thinking of Vulpo’s sister, considering the physical and character similarities of the fair and bright-souled young woman to Leliana. And in the advent of so much musing on Filius Septimus, Mahanon’s long-submerged tendency to brooding was bound to have its _full_ say after so long under wraps.

 

Such was his weariness and overwhelmed state, he supposed, that denying that facet of his mind its self-indulgent wallow in the past was pointless and even detrimental. His energy and determination were best saved for the path and the climb, and whatever battle awaited at climb’s end. He was better served focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, until then.

 

And, as if to give further testament to that, he stumbled a bit on loose, icy grit underfoot, his sword falling from his right hand as he instinctively flung it out to catch himself during the inevitable fall.

 

But _Solas_ caught him with his hard, strong hands and righted him—held Mahanon up while reality took this unpleasant opportunity to start revolving slowly, but with gusto. The next thing Mahanon knew, he was actually listing into the other man’s grip. Then leaning into a hold he refused to classify as an embrace.

 

“How many days since last you slept or ate, Hunter?” Solas murmured, his breath warm and fleeting on Mahanon’s temple. He was close enough that Mahanon should have felt his body-heat, as well as the electric crackle of the magic that surrounded him, but . . . he only felt colder, still.

 

He closed his eyes and fought a shiver that had several reasons, on which he cared neither to dwell nor even examine.

 

“I’ve no idea what day this even _is_ , let alone when I last ate, in relation to it! And I’ve slept rather a lot since the Conclave, or so I gather. I’ll be fine. I’ve little leave to be anything else.” Snorting, Mahanon risked opening his eyes. The world was still spinning, but at least not worse. By much. He tried to pull out of Solas’ gentle, but firm hold. The mage’s hands did not give him up so easily, however, tightening like an icy, iron shackle around his left bicep and a restraining clamp on his hip, just above the holstered Dalish blades. Mahanon let his eyes drift to Solas pale face, his own blank, but with clear warning in his stare. And his tone, when he once again spoke. “Thank you for your assistance, but I can manage on my own.”

 

Those winter pond-eyes didn’t so much as flicker, though the brooding brows above them furrowed a bit.

 

“As you said, Hunter . . . you cannot close the Breach and the Rifts if you are dead.”

 

Mahanon let his own brows drift up as he pointedly glanced down at Solas’ hands, where they continued to hold him, then back up at that chilly-canny-curious gaze.

 

“Is _that_ what you’re doing, right now, Solas?” he murmured without inflection, though shivering again as he said the mage’s name. And Solas’ brows furrowed deeper, too, as Mahanon leaned even closer into the other man’s personal space, exuding equal parts challenge, humor, and invitation . . . every iota of it sincere and unashamed. It was an old intimidation-trick Mahanon had learned from an elf of Antivan background years ago, whilst on his meandering way south. Said trick had _never_ failed him, and wasn’t about to start, if Solas’ widening, then narrowing eyes were any indication. “Keeping me alive so that I can . . . close the rents in reality?”

 

Solas was, surprisingly, the first to look away in this particular stare-down, his hands slowly releasing Mahanon.

 

“Cassandra and Varric are drawing ahead. Let us not fall so far behind that they face the coming dangers as a vanguard,” the mage said, stalking past Mahanon like a frozen blade.

 

Mahanon watched him go . . . watched him quickly ascend, closing the distance between himself and the other two with seemingly little effort. Something in his straight, unrelenting stalk and coiled, pulled-in figure telegraphed his own brooding and tension, and disinclination for further company.

 

Smirking and grim, then, gritting his teeth as he bent to pick up his fallen sword—the dizziness increased and _stayed_ increased even after he’d straightened and continued his own ascent—Mahanon forged onward into the gusting wind, flying snow, and lowering sense of doom.

 

#

 

Sealing the Rift on the path to the Temple was every bit as exhausting, arduous, and agonizing as Mahanon expected.

 

In the silence of the Rift collapsing in on itself, he simply knelt in the snow, clutching his aching-numb-cold wrist as the green-gold radiance faded. As the world around him, already at a premium where color and dimension were concerned, began to truly grey-out. The only things that seemed to be neither sere nor leached, and drained of all vivacity was the snow around him, the Breach above him, and the red-black light on the backs of his tired eyelids.

 

“Sealed, as before,” a slightly mocking voice said from his right, nearby, but still from seemingly far away . . . echoing and wind-whipped. “You are becoming quite proficient at this, Hunter.”

 

“Let’s just hope it works as well on the big one,” came another voice from Mahanon’s left: Varric's, and more weary and grim than Mahanon had yet heard. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried not to think about the _big one_. Tried not to think so far ahead when he had little hope he’d see the end of the trek to the Temple, let alone any challenges that waited beyond it.

 

“Thank the Maker you finally arrived, Lady Cassandra . . . I don’t think we could’ve held out much longer,” another voice said from further away, soft, and drained and stunned beyond all inflection.

 

“Thank our prisoner, Lieutenant. _He_ insisted we come this way,” was Cassandra’s reply. And in the surprised silence that followed, Mahanon could feel all their eyes on him, weighing and assessing. Hoping.

 

Even Solas’ chilly-considering gaze carried a small measure of that hope.

 

Mahanon shuddered and hunched in on himself, shaking and swaying.

 

“The prisoner?” Cassandra’s lieutenant said, startlement winning out over the fatigue in her cold-hoarse voice. “Then, he—”

 

“We have to get to the Breach, and quickly,” Mahanon insisted around a cough that did not rattle, thankfully . . . merely chuffed. Satisfied, at least, at this small bit of providence, he struggled to get his right leg up and under him, then his aching, banjaxed left. Once upright, despite the spinning of his head and the weariness that seemed to tug downward on all of him, he opened his eyes, not meeting any of their gazes, and scanned the way ahead. The way _up_. It wasn’t drawing any nearer while he stood about catching his breath and taking his leisure, he accepted with a soft, slumping sigh. He didn’t even glare at Solas when the mage came to stand at his side, all unpredictable and unhidden solicitousness once more.

 

Behind him, the lieutenant spoke hesitantly. “The Breach? But I don’t understand. . . .” she trailed off, sounding confused as Cassandra issued orders to fall back and regroup. Those orders would likely save the lives of the lieutenant and her remaining soldiers. For all the good that might ultimately do.

 

“Are you _certain_ , Lady Cassandra? We would have your back in the battles ahead, if that is your wish,” the lieutenant said meekly, her voice loyal and painfully young. Younger than Mahanon could ever remember feeling.

  
When Cassandra spoke, there was approval in her voice, as well as stern fondness. “I’m certain, lieutenant, though I appreciate your courage and loyalty. The way into the valley behind us is clear, for the moment. Go, while you still can,” she bade them, and they took off with a lingering, heartfelt salute from the lieutenant.

 

Mahanon returned his gaze to the way ahead when the lieutenant’s gaze lit on him as she turned away, contemplative and hopeful. For some reason, that misplaced faith rankled and jangled his worn-out, but high-strung nerves, so he stumped on, limping and labored. Then, with a bit more fortitude as the first excruciating, exhausting steps did not fell him. Nor the ones after that.

 

“The path ahead appears to be clear of demons, as well,” Solas noted from behind him. Mahanon was far too spent to worry about knives or spells in the back. If Solas decided he wanted Mahanon dead, then Mahanon would certainly look forward to the hoped-for oblivion afforded him by such an outcome, if nothing else.

 

“Then we should hurry, before that changes,” Cassandra replied, flat and resolute. And yet Mahanon could both sense and hear that he was alone in his painstaking momentum, followed by nothing more than uncertain gazes and uneasy consideration. Above him and around him, the heights of the mountains—though fuzzy-edged—were a looming, unwavering locus in his reality. They neither trembled nor span.

 

Much like the Breach, they were a doom that would not be avoided nor ignored. One that had set itself directly in _all_ their roads.

 

“Indeed, we _should_ make haste. _Quickly_ ,” Mahanon added in a bark that was cracked and wind-stolen, but steely and imperative with unflinching command. He desired an end to this, whatever end was to be. So, he forced himself onward at a brisker, more efficient pace despite enervation, and pain that bordered on agony robbing him of his very breath. Until each inhalation was a gasp and each exhalation was a grunting moan.

 

And though he noted as he climbed, the one hundred eighty-degree turn-around his operatic disaster of a life had taken, he did not stop to marvel or wonder. Merely acknowledged—with a sardonic grimace that _Vel Rilienus_ would have recognized to the bottom of his depthless, underdeveloped soul—that after twenty-five years of hardscrabble living, and of steady, meandering plateaus and steep, sudden descents, this time . . . doom and disaster lay at the end of a near vertical _ascent_.

 

The realization was, truly, not even worth the brief, hoarse, and wheezing chuckle he granted it.

 

Not long thereafter—probably subsequent to sharing a complex glance and tired shrug among the lot of them—he heard the _crunch-whumpf_ of weary, but determined footsteps in deep snow, following him up the road to ruin.

 

He was both surprised and unutterably _grateful_ that he wouldn’t be dying alone among his enemies.

 

And though such selfish consolation was, itself, _also_ not worth the wasted air of a despairing chuckle . . . Mahanon Lavellan chuckled—and despaired—nonetheless.

 

#

 

Eventually, as with all the few good patches in the life of the man who used to a be a boy called _Vulpo Helvius_ , it all—the sex, the sweetness, the security and safety, the certainty that he was not only needed, but _wanted_ . . . maybe even _loved_ . . . even though he had been long unsure of what it was to exist in such a state—came to an end.

 

With no pot-holes in the road or warning signs, other than the fact that Vel Rilienus and his _other_ -boy were almost _deliriously happy_ and content—as unsubtle a foreshadowing as any, had Vel or Vulpo the courage to acknowledge that—and with no great obstacles to overcome, his unfurling road at Septimus’ side ended not in a dead-end, but a cliff that Vel went over.

 

He tumbled willingly into the abyss below not of an inability to slow his momentum, but because an end to everything had seemed far better than staring out across this new and perpetual gap. Better than lingering at his side of the precipice, the other side of which he couldn’t even _see_ , let alone tell if there was a road beyond the opposing cliff where Septimus—or _whatever_ his name was—was still waiting with open arms and drowning-deep eyes.

 

But that was how the road they shared _ended_ , not quite a year after they’d first embarked upon it. It was the literal falling-action of their whirlwind-story . . . the book-end to a climax that had been as hot and bright and sudden a happening as their exposition and rising actions.

 

The falling, however, was as silent and empty and deep as unleavened entropy. It was so vast a loneliness, in some moments Vel was more in awe of its breadth and depth, than he was in despair. It spiraled seemingly ever and ever inward, and for what would likely be the rest of Vel’s pointless, miserable, agonized existence.

 

Whether a _true_ bottom existed, rather than a series of new nadirs, let alone a denouement beyond that, was no concern of Vel’s. Nothing much was, in the immediate aftermath, and for rather a long time beyond that, as well.

 

In fact, until desperation brought him to the arms of his grandfather’s Dalish Clan—with only his gleaming blades to vouchsafe for him and the Clan’s Keeper’s ability to see beyond Vel’s listless-dead affect and _shem_ -ears—Vel Rilienus would, in the wake of such a great loss as all the love he’d never expected to get or feel, be little more than a ghost. One whose restless despair would deeply inform the nascent _Mahanon Lavellan_.

 

But that, too, was an end. The end of yet another meaningless identity he would assume between casting off the Rilienus-one and finally assuming the Lavellan-one, letting Keeper Deshanna name him after the mysterious grandfather he had never known and would never know.

 

The end of “Vel Rilienus”—the beginning, middle, _and_ end of his end—was initiated by the same self-destructive prurience and whimsy that was rumored to end cats.

 

 _In the end_ , Vel Rilienus had courted his _own_ destruction as surely as night followed day. And ironically, that end could be said to have started with an actual cat.

 

#

 

“You’re . . . not actually _serious_ ,” Septimus said when Vel came into their suite—though Vel still kept his small room in _Serah_ Carolus’ establishment just in case, he only put in appearances to pay rent and make certain the place was still standing—one evening, and shrugged off the dark gray cloak Septimus had gifted him for fall solstice, revealing a small, pitiful, bedraggled cat.

 

Rather, a small, pitiful, bedraggled _kitten_.

 

Grinning, Vel crossed the main room, kicking off his damp boots and shaking a dusting of snow off his messy-shaggy hair before flopping onto the comfortable sofa with the sort of happy groan that usually had Septimus between Vel’s shoved-apart knees and on his own in instants.

 

This time, however, when Vel opened his eyes, it was to Septimus still sitting at his writing desk, turned to watch him as he stretched, then cuddled the kitten. While said kitten struggled and voiced tiny mews, shivering and clearly a bit angry.

 

Seemingly at _Septimus_ , at whom she bared her tiny fangs and even tinier claws. Vel brought her close to his face and kissed her mussy, orange-furred head, his hold of her sure and precise. Gentle.

 

“Awww, don’t be cross, little girl, that’s just Filius! He’s _our domine_! The _best domine!_ Yes, he is!” Vel told the hissing kitten, who didn’t take her eyes off Septimus. And Septimus . . . was _still_ staring, but now, his mouth was dropped in a gape and he looked utterly poleaxed.

 

“Seriously?” Septimus finally managed, placing his quill pen back in the holder attached to the old desk. Then he was standing up, shaking his head in disbelief. He took a few steps toward the sofa and Vel, stopped and stared at the pugnacious kitten dwarfed by Vel’s large hands, then repeated himself: “You’re _not_ actually serious, are you, Vel?”

 

Vel turned his biggest grimace-smile on Septimus—it’d grown _less_ grimace-y and rather more _cheeky_ , in the ten and one-half months of their arrangement—and contrived to look as blank and naïve as he so rarely did, anymore.

 

“ _Serious_? About what, _domine_? I haven’t even said _hullo_ , yet.”

 

Septimus’s right brow shot up and he scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. It was rather late and he was wearing nothing more than his warmest sleeping robe and perhaps his old, beige sleep-trousers underneath. It was difficult to tell, since the damned robe was floor-length.

 

Vel’s affected naivete slipped considerably as he imagined the fun he’d have—and had had in recent, winter-y weeks—getting under that plush layer of burgundy, fur-lined cloth, to the smooth, warm skin underneath. . . .

 

“My eyes are up here, Rilienus,” Septimus said dryly and, smirking, Vel let his gaze take the slow and appreciative route up from groin-level on the robe, to Septimus’ exasperated face.

 

In his big, careful hands, the kitten was wriggling now, not struggling. And scratching up Vel’s fingers seemingly because she could.

 

Vel didn’t know that he believed in such a thing as kindred spirits, but if he ever were to, right behind Septimus, of course, this runty-fierce kitten would comprise Vel’s entire list.

 

“ _Eugh_ , I can _see_ the bloody hearts in your striking, but normally shark-like eyes, dearest. And I am _very_ disturbed.”

 

“Hmm. If my _domine_ needs soothing . . . he has only to say so,” Vel informed Septimus in a rumbling, deferential murmur, and with a steady and direct gaze. He had the satisfaction of seeing his lover’s eyes flicker as if a blaze had been lit behind them. It turned the already stormy gray into a lowering, consuming inferno.

 

Letting the slightest of smiles curve his lips as he overtly ran his own hungry gaze down and up Septimus’ concealing robe, Vel finally ended his perusal at the other man’s piercing gaze, once more. “Never mind tasking himself with commanding me . . . he has only to _compel_ me with his gaze, and before his next blink, I will be on my knees before him, reminding us both of my chosen and preferred place.”

 

Septimus’ distracting mouth dropped open in a gut-punched gape. As ever it did, when Vel engaged in “smut-talk that was lacking in _all_ finesse, yet simmering with the innocent allure and potent wantonness of absolute, unabashed, and _wicked_ honesty . . . of which, I heartily approve.”

 

Now, Septimus was nearly smirking, though he still looked a bit gobsmacked. “Is that so, my dashing _Serah_?”

 

Vel's partial smile curled into an expression that Septimus had frequently claimed made him look like “besmirched innocence made glorious, irresistible flesh,” and he tilted his face up, both in submission and anticipation of the aforementioned _chosen and preferred_ position. Septimus swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he licked his lips reflexively, and Vel found that _extremely_ gratifying. “Oh, I will _joyfully_ attend to my _domine_ with every ounce and fiber of my attention and adoration, acceding and acquiescence. If such is his wish, of course.”

 

“Of course. You . . . really _are_ trying to kill me, aren’t you, Rilienus?” Septimus added after a beat. Vel’s initial reply was to tilt his head back a bit more, offering his throat—for Septimus’ kisses _or_ Septimus’ firm, unyielding hand . . . either was rightness and bliss, to Vel—while gazing at the focused-distracted man from under his eyelashes.

 

“I can’t worship you properly if you’re dead, _domine_ ,” he chastised with kind, but amused reason. He quirked a wide and unrestrained grin at his lover, even as the kitten hooked her claws into the webbing of flesh between his right thumb and forefinger. He didn’t wince, though his brow furrowed. The kitten, meanwhile mewed triumphantly . . . then added her needle-like fangs to the mix.

 

“Huh! I know of several cults in Minrathous, alone, that hold the opposing viewpoint, and with some vitriol!” Septimus huffed, then sighed, crossing the room to sit next to Vel on the sofa. The kitten hissed and swiped at him with her tiny claws as Vel inched closer, so that he was all but buried against Septimus’ side, humming contentedly. Septimus groaned, sounding put-upon and long-suffering, but he wrapped his arm around Vel’s shoulders without hesitation, protective and possessive. Kissed Vel’s temple with tenderness and affection that still made Vel’s chest and being ache so sweetly.

 

When he sighed, almost drowsy with contentment and warmth and security, Septimus chuckled, his fingers stroking along Vel’s bicep teasingly.

 

“I’d never have figured you for a cat-person, _Serah_. Not at all,” he murmured against Vel’s temple. Chuckling, too, Vel glanced down at the kitten. She was giving Septimus a stare-of-death-and-possible-consideration. Her claws had once more hooked into Vel’s hand, however. This time, at the base of his left thumb. The heart that’d been so long in forming—or resurrecting—in his breast turned over a bit as the kitten mewed huffily, her claws retracting a bit. Beads of blood welled from Vel’s palm and he grinned, scratching the top of her tiny head with his forefinger. In seconds, she was no longer glaring at Septimus, but purring with bliss-closed eyes.

 

“This is . . . one of the most disturbing developments I’ve ever been privy to, you realize?” Septimus informed him, and Vel snorted.

 

“What’s so strange about me liking a kitten, _domine_? She’s _fierce_ and . . . adorable.”

 

“Indubitably. But, dearest, you have more in common with a canine—specifically, a wolf—than you do a feline. Even so ferocious and violent a one as _this_.”

 

“I suppose,” Vel allowed, turning his face to nuzzle Septimus jaw. “Mmm, but like all canines, I have a fascination . . . no, an _obsession_ with the feline.”

 

“Huh . . . is that so?”

 

“Yes. Has that not been made obvious, my _domine_?”

 

When Septimus looked down at him curiously, Vel was already smiling up at him, admiring and adoring. “I have a preference for elegant lines and motion, personality and behavior that are particular and unapologetic. An appreciation for the sensual, and for a discriminating taste in companions. I also adore beauty and grace and style. Cunning and keenness of mind and sensibility. And _beauty_. . . .”

 

“Hmm, you already mentioned _beauty_ , my subtle _Serah_. . . .”

 

“I thought it worth mentioning twice.”

 

“Ah.” Septimus smiled, fond and pleased . . . then it turned into a rather wicked smirk as he leaned in and teased a kiss from Vel’s lips, until the last of the outdoors chill had melted from them and they were as warm and sweet as if he’d spent the entire day being kissed thus by his lover.

 

The kiss only broke, sometime later, when Septimus gasped and swore. Vel opened his eyes and saw Septimus shaking his hand as if it pained him and glaring down at Vel’s lap . . . at the hissing and swiping kitten in Vel’s hands.

 

Those hands—and that affronted kitten—happened to be blocking access to Vel’s fly and groin.

 

“So, about your vicious, fuzzy little chastity-belt, Rilienus,” Septimus gritted out haughtily, his eyes narrowed at the kitten, who seemed not at all intimidated. Vel chuckled again and shifted the kitten to his right hand and caught Septimus' hand with his left. With lifted brows, he brought that hand and its shallow, sluggishly-welling scratches to his face for kisses. One for each finger, one for Septimus’ knuckles, then one for his palm, where the scratches bisected his heart-line.

 

Septimus watched Vel with his breath obviously held, but made a soft grunt low in his throat when Vel licked lightly at the slightly bloody scratches, tickling and teasing with his tongue as he met Septimus’ wide-eyed, intent gaze.

 

It wasn’t long before Vel was simply licking, nibbling, and sucking on Septimus’ hand and fingers. They tasted of wine, vellum, and ink.

 

“The only thing I want more than you on your knees, gifting me your lovely mouth and throat,” Septimus said, low and restraint-brittle, “is you bent over the edge of our bed, gifting me your arse. I don’t want anything, even my cock, obstructing the sounds you make while I fuck you _just so_ . . . the moans and whimpers, the growls and yells . . . the way you simultaneously thank me and _beg me for more_ with every stuttered, breathless _domine_ that falls from your luscious lips . . . the way you hold me tight and _keep me_ , during and afterwards, with everything in you: body, heart, and soul. I want _all_ of that and nothing less. _And more of you, besides_ , if I can win that, as well.”

 

Surprised, Vel opened eyes that had fluttered shut, and his tongue stopped swirling around Septimus’ thumb. He blinked, then licked and nibbled his way off said thumb, sitting back a bit with a final kiss to the pad.

 

“You have me. Always. However you wish, whenever you wish, _domine_.” Vel frowned a bit, then shook his head ruefully. “The words . . . aren’t adequate. Neither is my willing, ecstatic, obsessive, and reverent submission. But they are all I have to give you. All of me that is . . . possibly of any value. I have nothing else worth tendering, I fear. So, I once more offer that submission—my loyalty and admiration and affection . . . the promise that for as long as you wish to be, you’ll be my _domine_ , no matter what. All that I have to give and all of me that you want is yours.”

 

Septimus’ eyes had gone the size of dinner plates. And for a minute, all he did was stare at Vel, who felt vaguely as if he should be ashamed or embarrassed . . . but the pride and conceit required to make him feel such things about the truth to which he clung, and looked to for warmth and reassurance, had never manifested in his regrown heart. So, he simply offered himself openly and without reserve, should Septimus want him . . . for as long as that might be.

 

Eventually, after staring for several minutes into Vel’s eyes, Septimus shivered and smiled, wondering and small.

 

“All of you, but for the bits given to this mangy, angry kitten, which I assume you wish to keep,” he finally said, abrupt and sardonic and clearly _not_ what he truly wanted to say. But his eyes were shining, bright and warm and yearning. _Electric_ with their bare and powerful honesty. Solemn and almost _grim_ with the adamant, _burning_ fierceness that Vel suddenly understood was . . . _devotion._ Pure and plain, and at last revealed.

 

And it was _deep_. Deeper than any feeling that had ever been shown to him. Greater and more precious a gift than he’d ever received or ever again would.

 

Vel grinned, flushed and elated, as he cradled the kitten in both hands, once more. She’d gone quite still, and though he couldn’t look away from Septimus’ eyes to be sure, he suspected she’d dropped into sleep . . . sudden and deep, in the way of all new things.

 

“Well, yes. _Obviously_ not _those_ bits, _domine_.”

 

“Hmph. How shocking. And I . . . suppose coveting the affection my lover lavishes on a kitten who thinks she’s a tiger would be . . . rather _gauche_ of me. . . .”

 

“Despicably so. Behavior _very_ unbefitting _my domine_ ,” Vel confirmed, biting his lower lip as Septimus leaned in again. His lips brushed Vel’s in a feather-light kiss, then traveled across his cheek, to his ear. Vel was taken and shaken by a pleasant shiver as Septimus whispered:

 

“Your new little friend and I are going to pay our landlady a brief visit, and beg a cushion and a litter box off her. Maker knows, with all those cats of hers, she’s probably swimming in surplus accessories of that sort.” Septimus flicked his tongue along Vel’s earlobe then caught it between precise, but intent teeth. Then he chuckled, even as he carefully lifted the probably-sleeping kitten from Vel’s hands. She didn’t so much as shift or struggle or sigh, and Septimus hummed low in his chest, releasing Vel’s earlobe with another lick, before speaking again. “And when I get back, _serah_ , I want you stretched, bent over the side of our bed, and _ready_ for me.”

 

Vel groaned as another shiver took him—deep enough to be a shudder—and Septimus stood gracefully, holding the kitten securely, but gently, and gazing down at Vel with heated, promising, _flickering_ eyes like lightning on an already stormy horizon.

 

After holding that gaze with his own reverential one—Vel had never hidden his awe of Septimus nor its depth, breadth, and height . . . it’s unending expansion—Vel lowered his eyes obediently. Tilted his head back in slight exposure of his throat as he swallowed and swallowed, in an effort to regain his lost voice.

 

“Yes, _domine_.”

 

#

 

Vel wasn’t even searching for _it_ —or anything _remotely_ like it—when he _found_ it.

 

He was actually searching for Little Girl, their fearless, fast-growing kitten, who’d doubled in size in the not-quite three weeks since Vel had brought her home.

 

Before he heard her frantic mews, Vel was lying late abed, as he so often did, these days. Septimus had reluctantly abandoned the sweet, tender afterglow to go have a soak. _Little Girl_ had been—or so Vel had thought—asleep on her saggy-soft cushion in the main room.

 

Shortly after Septimus had closed the door to the _en suite_ , Vel heard the hot water spigot shut off and, almost instantly after _that_ , Septimus’ sybaritic, relieved groan as he sank into the tub. Followed by several more such groans as the water soothed the muscles he’d worked while putting his back into Vel for most of the morning.

 

And though, as ever, he’d invited Vel unequivocally to join him, not only was the _tub_ far too small for them both, but Vel _liked_ lounging about and dozing, covered in Septimus’ sweat and come, scent and marks. And Septimus _liked_ him covered in them as well, often letting himself be tempted into a leisurely and affectionate encore of their earlier _divertissement_ , despite having taken such a long and cleansing soak.

 

Still lying abed and anticipating that encore, one hand splayed on his abdomen, the other behind his shaggy head, Vel drifted into a light doze before he heard the mewing from directly beneath him.

 

From _under_ the bed.

 

Smiling a little, he was prepared to ignore it until it grew louder and a bit frustrated. Then a bit frightened.

 

With a terse grunt of discomfort as he sat up—life with Septimus often made sitting on his arse quite a dicey bet for Vel most days, though he _relished_ such tangible reminders of his _domine’s_ continued and seemingly unwaning enthusiasm for him—Vel then dropped to the floor, reaching under the bed for their poor little kitten.

 

“Oi, little one . . . c’mon . . . it’s just me, Little Girl, just Vel . . . silly little fluffball, getting lost under the bed. Filius’d laugh his head off at you, and rightly so,” he murmured in his most reassuring tone, feeling along the wooden floor for the kitten. His fingers just brushed Little Girl’s lashing, agitated tail, when she hissed—not an unprecedented happening—and sank her teeth and claws into his hand deeper than she ever had.

 

Hissing, himself, Vel instinctively yanked his hand up and away, banging it hard on something smooth and wooden, long and . . . _cylindrical._ It was _not_ a part of the bed-frame.

 

As was made clear, when whatever-it-was dropped from the underside of the bed, to the floor, with a heavy sort of clatter. Vel had already pulled his hand from under the bed, entirely. Little Girl streaked from beneath the bed on Septimus’ side, but Vel only noticed this escape peripherally.

 

His heart racing for absolutely no reason, he reached back under the bed, and along the floor with a hand and arm that were tremoring minutely, but uncontrollably. All of him was cold, of a sudden, but for the hot, alarum-shrill of instinct in his gut and the back of his otherwise silent brain.

 

 _No good will come of this,_ Vulpo Helvius informed him with soft and certain despair _. Some suspicions can be lived with, glossed over, and ignored._ Forgotten _. For a lifetime, even. But once you_ know _for sure . . . you_ must _act. For good or ill, you must_ act.

 

“Be still,” Vel murmured to Vulpo. To his rabbiting, loudening heart as it tried to drown out the initial impression that formed in his mind as his hand closed around the long, cylindrical object. He drew it to him steadily, without hesitation, even as its touch made his skin crawl and every hair on his body stand on end. “My _domine_ is allowed to have a . . . _walking stick_. Even one he feels obliged to keep secret.”

 

At this inane idiocy, Vulpo snorted, bitter and sarcastic in a way he’d never used to be and which Vel had quite forgotten the knack of, since becoming entangled with Septimus.

 

Far too soon, Vel was pulling the walking stick out from under the bed and into the grey-white winter sunlight.

 

After a frozen minute—or several, perhaps—he stood slowly, unsteadily, shaking as if palsied and faint. It was only when the room had started to spin lazily, but nauseatingly, that he realized he’d been holding his breath.

 

Gasping, he stumbled the three steps to the bed and fell on his arse into it, the tangible reminders of Septimus’ flattering enthusiasm wholly unnoticed and forgotten as he hunched forward with a groan. Then he bowed his heavy head as the room somehow, for some reason, began to spin even worse. He raised his shaking left hand to his thudding temple, unable to hear over that thud and the throbbing rush of all the blood in his veins.

 

He couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

 

Reality was his tunneling vision of the same window he’d stared out of the morning he’d first woken up in Septimus’ bed, with Septimus in his arms. And though seductive, tempting black nibbled away at the edges of his consciousness increasingly, he forced himself to take deep, slow, controlled breaths.

 

He closed his eyes until some of his disorientation had passed. However, when he opened them again, the world still refused to make any sort of sense, simply because of the object Vel was still holding.

 

The entire world suddenly and irreversibly defied explanation or reason, kindness or providence.

 

Everything was wrong. Had gone . . . _wrong_. Because in Vel’s right hand, Septimus’ . . . walking stick—long, elegant, carven of pale, resilient wood, and about the width of Vel’s wrist—seemed to pulse and give off a faint sort of . . . _warmth_. Like a _living thing_ with a will and power of its own. . . .

 

“Clearly, it’s _not_ his,” Vel mumbled, practically slurred, his hand clenching on the wooden impossibility as if to pulverize it. Within the aching abyss where his reformed heart had been, Vulpo disappeared silently . . . was submerged into that void without another sound. Vel might have been alarmed, had he not gone so utterly numb. “Clearly, whomever stayed in this suite before Septimus took residence, left this behind . . . perhaps . . . he was in a rush to be gone. Mages are always in some sort of trouble. Perhaps this one didn’t even have time to take _this_ with him. Perhaps he simply left it behind in a mad rush. Left behind his . . . his greatest means of defense, and the source of his status and livelihood. His _staff_. It’s . . . entirely possible . . . circumstances being what they sometimes are . . . that a mage would forget or leave behind his _staff_. Perhaps because. . . .”

 

But Vel fell silent, having run out of theories. His mouth shut with a click and he closed his eyes once more, though it did little to help the spinning—the spiraling—of his sense of self . . . of his _entire world_ , and his once-certain place in it.

 

“It’s just a fancy walking stick,” he started muttering over and over until the words became meaningless sounds, like screams or sobs.

 

And—though he did not see it—at the very pinnacle of this walking stick, the single, spherical orb winked and flashed in the filtered, winter light like mocking, heliographed laughter.

 

TBC


	8. The Wrath of Heaven and the Joining of the Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mahanon and company arrive at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, at last, there to reopen and hopefully seal the key Rift and the Breach, once and for all. Questions might get answered and the world might get saved. Assuming that the one person who can seal the Breach isn’t seduced and subverted by its power. _And_ assuming that they aren’t all smooshed and devoured by a near-invincible pride demon . . . which might actually be a _lot_ to assume.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Battlefield flirting. Dark magic. Nonconsensual mind-magic. Fight scenes. The beginnings of self-healing and growth. Big-ass pride demon.

**Chapter Seven: The Wrath of Heaven and the Joining of the Three**

Upon their arrival at and investigation of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Mahanon and his already silent companions were rendered utterly speechless.

After some gobstruck wandering around the empty Temple, Mahanon lead his party to the Rift by feel alone. Nothing and no one waylaid them. All was deathly still, but for the empty, howling wind. Before long, they emerged from the devastation of collapsed rooms and blocked halls, and onto a gallery that overlooked what remained of the destroyed nave. As one, they could only stare down at the Rift that nearly filled the open space. It was the largest, yet, and it pulsed and writhed, repellent and fascinating all at once. It seemed to throb in time to Mahanon’s weary heartbeat. . . .

Then, as one, their eyes were drawn to its source and power . . . to the green-gold tear in the fabric of reality, which hung in the winter sky above the Temple.

“That Breach is a _long_ way up,” Varric noted quietly, with matter-of-fact unhappiness that made Mahanon feel sudden kinship with and nascent affection for the rakish rogue. Mahanon even smiled, though the Rift—and the Breach itself—made his entire skull seem to ache worse. Especially his affronted-dazzled eyes.

Not to mention his baking-freezing-electric left arm.

Around them, the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes remained wind-scoured, but otherwise silent. The once-holy site was now a mess of shattered stone, fallen plinths, collapsed corridors, and broken stairs. There was more ceiling and roof scattered on the stones at their feet than there was actual floor to stand upon. Bodies, too, littered the space, some human and elf, and some . . . not.

And above it all, reigning like a cruel and indifferent god, hung the Breach . . . its stormy, misty threshold fuzzily defined by storm clouds, but almost alive with a large-scale version of the electricity and energy that engulfed Mahanon’s left hand.

From within that obscured, green-gold rent, a soundless, toneless, voiceless, _ceaseless_ emanation seemed to flow. To fill the air like an invisible force.

“It . . . _sings_ ,” Mahanon realized, striding closer to the Rift—and the distant-high Breach that powered it—with shuffling, labored steps that he didn’t even notice, let alone fight. His body, fatigued and bowed, shivering from shock and cold and exhaustion, listed left and forward markedly. But all Mahanon’s attention was taken by the Breach. The towering wrongness of it so close, so real, and so _loud_. “All the old songs that were put away behind the Veil and forgotten . . . the Breach sings them to Thedas, once more. And every note it unleashes is chaos and death and silence. . . .”

Even though he was speaking—murmuring under his breath—Mahanon wasn’t breathing. Nor was he blinking, something else which escaped his notice until, after however long, his eyelashes fluttered and he finally blinked once again. Only to whirl, sneering and growling, at Solas. The mage met his gaze with one that was as cold as ever, but hot, too. Devouring and dangerous, and at odds with the light, brief touch of his hand on Mahanon’s left shoulder.

Sneer and growl fading, his eyes widened as the winter-blue of Solas’ intense gaze seemed to pale further, and crackle with magical energy even Mahanon could feel. Could track like the tingle of a strange force all across every inch of his skin . . . covered or not.

It was mere moments before Mahanon realized . . . that crackling paleness was growing exponentially hotter in a way that wasn’t entirely about magic. It was a part of Solas, that paleness and heat. It took and consumed, where the Breach did the opposite, all color and cold.

But Solas’ paleness—or _was_ it darkness?—and heat was responding to . . . or perhaps amplified by whatever madness powered the color and cold of the Breach. It was peeling back the layers between his core nature and the world. _Buffering, protective_ layers that were probably better off in-place, and yet. . . .

Mahanon found himself swaying toward the mage. Toward something that somehow felt greater than the Breach. And, in its own quiet way, more wrong.

“You h-hear it, too,” he said with shaking relief, his eyelids lowering to half-mast, en route to shutting. He could, he knew, just let go, now. _Finally let go_ and simply be swept along in the dead-music of the Breach and fiery-pale shadows at Solas’ center, and never have to worry or think or despair again. He experienced a moment of disorientation that made him stagger and the world start to white out. But once more, Solas caught him by the biceps. Held him up. The other man was so _warm_ , now . . . or perhaps Mahanon was simply that much colder. He couldn’t even remember how it felt to be truly warm throughout. “ _You hear it_ . . . please, I _need_. . . .”

Solas’ hands clenched painfully tight on Mahanon’s biceps until Mahanon raised his drooping, weary head. Now, Solas’ gaze was commanding and grounding. He drew Mahanon close—close enough to share air, close enough to kiss—then averted his face at the last moment, to murmur in his ear. The mage’s stuttered breath and spare lips felt warm and bracing, like brandy after being out in a winter night.

“Yes, I hear it, too,” Solas said softly, sadly, his voice threaded with frustration. His next exhale was gusting and hot, and Mahanon shivered, letting his eyes slip shut in relief and weariness. On the backs of his lids, all he saw was green-gold light and Solas’ eyes. Different, but linked. _The same_. “But the song is incomplete. It is only the minor notes. The wrong notes. The _dead_ notes that exist only to make the living ones shine brighter.” Solas sighed and his hands on Mahanon’s arms clenched even tighter, though Mahanon barely felt it due to numbness and distraction. “The major notes are still trapped. This is not the _true_ song. The _entire_ song. And _now_ is not the time to listen, Hunter. Soon, perhaps . . . but not now.”

“But it draws me to it. . . .” Mahanon knew he was whining, despite the low, needy husk of his voice. Yet he couldn’t seem to help it. Every atom of him was screaming for him to get closer, until the color and cold of the Breach was as pale and hot as whatever resided at Solas’ heart.

 _Everything_ , Mahanon knew, was hot at its innermost. If one had the courage, stubbornness, and foolhardiness to burrow deep enough.

Mahanon reckoned he had all three in overabundance.

“It does,” Solas replied, softer than ever. “And _you_ draw _it_ , to _you._ The Rifts, at least. Because of the Mark on your hand, there is a tug-of-war between you and the Breach. Even aside from that, latent and passive magics clearly run strong within both your bloodlines—as an informing extra-sense, and an affinity and edge to your chosen physical skills, which you would otherwise not possess. Magic isn’t something _you_ can do, Hunter. But it _is_ what you _are_. What shapes and drives you. It comprises you as much as your flesh and spirit.” Another gusty exhale that was practically a sigh warmed Mahanon’s ear, even as the song of the Breach seemed to grow ten-fold louder. “There is also a purity to you that I cannot explain, but it, too, is perhaps why light and dark forces are so strongly drawn to you. You are a beacon of great destiny and great deeds. A locus and hub around which Fates and Powers gather.”

Solas’ humid breath ghosted across Mahanon’s cheek, pausing at the corner of his mouth. The powerful spike of inexplicable desire that shot through Mahanon, even at just a fleeting breath managed to lessen the power and volume of the Breach’s siren-song. To eclipse it with something as primal and base and eternal as life, itself. Grasping at this fragile straw, this unexpected—dismaying—ray of hope, Mahanon moaned softly, turning his head just a bit toward Solas’. Just enough that his needs, wants, and intentions were obvious and unambiguous, as was his desperate whisper. “I can’t . . . it’s _in my head_ , and I need to drown it out . . . _please, help me._ . . .”

“Hunter . . . such would only work for as long as I . . . kept you distracted. You have battles to fight. Ones that _will not_ be won while you are being defiled against a tumbled column,” Solas said wryly, his lips moving away from Mahanon’s face altogether.

Mahanon barked a short laugh after a moment of surprise and, strangely, relief. But then he groaned as the Breach-song ramped up again, soul-deep and as impossible to ignore as a hot nail in one’s boot poking into the sole of an already tender foot.

“Can’t even bloody hear myself think around that din,” he mumbled, trying to focus and center himself. It was like trying to dance to an off-melody reel. Finding his footing was impossible, never mind any sort of grace or facility.

But that didn’t matter, he knew. All that mattered was sealing the Breach before it could get any worse—and it _would_ only get worse, with each passing moment. There was nothing else for it but to manage as ever he had, with or without his ability to focus and drown-out other concerns.

Resolved, if not reassured, he managed to open his eyes and lift his weary, dazed head again. Solas leaned back a bit more, and those icy eyes were _simply_ icy, once more. All the heat that had been in them now seemed to be emanating from those iron-band hands. But those still, deep eyes, like the bleakest, coldest dawn Thedas ever saw, were compelling and commanding. Mahanon _couldn’t_ look away—felt as if he was being drowned in a winter pool . . . felt as if he was going under. . . .

And as he was submerged, so was the music in his ears and in his head. Drowned and eroded, until it was a mere splinter of wrong in Mahanon’s psyche, isolated and contained. The dead-melody and the part of him that had heard and responded to that eerie call felt as if it was being wrapped in cotton batting, and then layers of wool, besides. Still there and definite, but no longer growing and consuming him.

And in moments, even the last of its echoes off the spaces within fell into silence and stillness. . . .

Opening eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, Mahanon met Solas’ intent and unreadable gaze again. Oddly, as he did, he felt a little of his strength and steadiness return—his mind cleared suddenly and sharply, coming back into focus—even as all memory of siren-songs and carnal distractions became fuzzy and forgotten.

He blinked up at Solas, eyes narrowed and suspicious as he attempted and failed to clearly recall the blurred and confused moments since he’d turned away from the Breach directly above. And as much as he dreaded looking for long at Solas—the elf-mage was truly irritating and grating . . . impossible and confounding—he dreaded looking up at that green-gold doom far more.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself. “Is there some reason you’re unable to keep your hands off me?” he asked without inflection, but with a fierce curl to his dry, cracked lips. Solas smiled, wintry and absent as ever, but also amused and approving. His thumbs stroked Mahanon’s biceps several times, slow and somehow steadying, before he let go. Mahanon’s gaze and snarl faltered at the intense and perplexing regret that moved through him at the loss of that iron-and-ice touch.

Shivering and throwing himself against an odd . . . cotton-wool wall of unremembering—which was growing more and more solid and impassible in his mind—Mahanon shook his head, holding Solas’ aloof gaze.

“Have you done something to me?” he asked, trembling and stone-still at the same time. Solas’ smile turned sardonic and sad. “ _Are you doing something to me?”_

“Those . . . are questions for a less urgent time, Hunter. First, save the world and survive. Recuperate. After that, perhaps, I shall try to answer your questions.”

“ _Perhaps_?” Mahanon demanded, cold through and through in a way that had nothing to do with winter. _Angry_ in a way that had nothing to do with the Breach. “Is your attempt to provoke me into driving a half-yard of Dalish steel into your throat as _effortless_ as you make it appear? Or is your skill-level such that the effort is rendered invisible to the naked eye?”

Solas’ thin lips twitched and his chilly gaze warmed noticeably. That warmth instantly flummoxed Mahanon, made him lose the thread of his alarm and anger. At least regarding such a . . . relatively petty nuisance.

When said nuisance opened his mouth to speak, they were both startled by Leliana’s voice coming from behind them.

“You’re here!” she called, just loud enough to be heard above the wind-whipped echoes flooding the decimated Temple. Mahanon and Solas looked around at her, and the soldiers at her back . . . what relative few had made it this far beyond the diversion-charge up the main approach. “Thank the Maker!”

Facing each other once more, Mahanon and Solas took each other’s measure, the latter amused, but both of them grim.

“To be continued,” Mahanon promised flatly, as Leliana drew within earshot. Solas actually smiled. It was as pale and anemic-looking as the rest of him, and ten times as annoying.

“I should expect nothing less, Hunter,” was his reply, with a deep incline of his shaven head. Though there was still amusement radiating from him, there was also—in the nod, at least—some modicum of respect. And when Solas’ straightened and met his gaze once more, Mahanon blushed again. Deep enough that it was unlikely the mage didn’t notice. Mahanon cleared his throat and looked off to his left as Cassandra strode past him, already issuing commands.

Stifling his continued fluster, he turned to face the Rift again, but did not look up at the Breach. The mere reflection of it in Varric’s eyes and on his face was more than enough to make him feel as if he was floating up toward the rent. Never mind his aching, booted, freezing feet still being firmly on the damaged stone of the gallery floor. . . .

“This is your chance to end this,” Cassandra said suddenly, right beside him without him noticing her approach. He didn’t even bother to hide his startlement. He simply sighed, shook his head, and swallowed a few times until his ears popped. It helped a bit, but not much. “Are you ready?”

After bracing himself for several long moments, Mahanon finally dared a look up the Breach. It seemed to pulse and hum and throb at him. To be calling him by name . . . not by any he’d ever _yet_ worn, but by something else altogether. But it was _his_ , that name. And the Breach and whatever drove it knew . . . it knew. . . .

He didn’t realize he’d been staring and swaying—and moaning low in his throat—until a hard-cold hand settled on his shoulder. He shook himself again, instantly recalled to his mission and purpose. He didn’t look over at Solas—didn’t need to. He instead looked down at his burning-cold, numb hand, and the energy that crawled and writhed across it. Halfway to his elbow, really.

“I’m . . . assuming one of you has a plan to get me up there,” he muttered, flexing his hand and fingers. They responded to his commands, but he couldn’t quite feel them. He only saw and sensed their presence at the end of his arm.

“No,” Solas said heavily, squeezing Mahanon’s shoulder in seeming solidarity before letting go. With the same hand, he gestured at the large Rift hanging in the air directly below them, closer to what used to be the chancel and altar, rather than the narthex. “ _This_ Rift was the first, Hunter. And it is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.”

“And there’s that word again. _Perhaps_ ,” Mahanon murmured ruefully, only for Solas to draw even with him, his profile enigmatic and anticipatory.

“Yes. But it is a good word for hopeful uncertainty,” the mage replied with an air of jaunty gallows’ humor. Mahanon snorted.

“Then, it’ll have to do, I suppose. _Perhaps we can_ end this madness now, and for good.”

“Indeed. Let us find a way down to the Rift. And be careful,” Cassandra said, meeting their gazes in turn. They all nodded in agreement and accord, even Solas, though Mahanon felt the near-instant return of the mage’s gaze and attention to him. Felt the ghost of that strong, cold hand on his shoulder still. It was as grounding as it was . . . unsettling.

“Let’s move,” he rasped, breathless, yet also possessed of a second wind. Or possibly a tenth. Then he was putting Rift and Breach to his back. But only that he might find his Maker-forsaken way closer to both.

#

_“Someone! Help me!”_

Mahanon was struck and nearly felled by the woman’s voice that filled the air around him, both familiar and not. In the midst of creeping around a corner, he stopped, glancing at Cassandra, who’d frozen across the falling-down corridor that lead to the nave . . . and the Rift.

“That is Divine Justinia’s voice!” she exclaimed, grief-struck and hopeful, and louder than she might otherwise have been because of both. In that moment, her wide, pale eyes looked young and lost.

Before Mahanon could caution her to silence, his glowing, energized hand began to crackle loudly, and spit green-gold fire, as it had when near the other Rifts.

Only . . . much louder and more noticeable.

 _There goes any element of surprise, should there turn out to be opposition here_ , he thought. Then, with a glance behind him, at Varric, Leliana, and the remaining soldiers—and Solas, who was watching him with keen closeness, as ever—Mahanon took a breath, then stepped around the final corner.

Before him hung the gargantuan Rift, shifting and writhing and pulsing. Disgusting and wrong in a way that commanded the gaze and the mind. It, like the Breach that spawned it, drew Mahanon closer, out into the open, his hand held out from his body as it burned and froze and crackled worse than ever.

“ _Someone! Help me!_ ” the woman’s voice pleaded, magnified by Fade-magic and her own desperation. Mahanon couldn’t yet pinpoint the direction from whence came her distress—he could barely keep himself together with the nearness of the Rift and the Breach directly overhead. His entire arm was now numb under ten tons of insane agony.

“What’s going on, here?” he heard _his own_ voice sound, from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. But definitely _not_ from his own throat. Frowning, he looked up and around. Cassandra and the others had followed him into the ruins of the nave. Except for her and Solas, they appeared to be wary and horrified, with weapons drawn.

Solas was staring up at the Breach, his face solemn and displeased. Cassandra, however was blinking at Mahanon in confusion.

“That was your voice,” she said, and something in Mahanon settled a bit. At least he wasn’t going mad alone. “Most Holy called out to you, but—”

With a monstrous, booming crackle, like thunder and lightning at the same moment, the Rift began to . . . change. Mahanon’s hand flared to greater agony and numbness, and he glanced at it, surprised to find it still attached, at this rate. When he looked up again, a moment later, it was to see color leach out of the world in a slow bleed. Ahead and above, the light-and-shadows shade of a woman hung suspended—by magic—before the turbulent Rift. He could make out a tall head-dress in the general style of the Southern Chantry, and her arms were held up and out at shoulder height. The tips of her shoes were barely visible below the hem of her official robes.

The dread and horror she radiated were so great, Mahanon felt the churning chill of it in his gut and his marrow.

Her terror— _Divine Justinia V’s terror_ —was not for herself. Not merely.

It was for the entire world.

And it was _of_ the hideous shadow that flickered and coalesced just beyond her, and above the contracting and roiling Rift.

Mahanon took a step forward and another, shivering as some barrier, invisible and potent, was crossed and the leached un-reality of the world around him solidified. As he drew closer, he felt as if he, too, was drained of color and reality. Of solidity and weight, until even the exhaustion and injury that had plagued him was lifted. He felt as if he was gliding onward by will, alone. As he did, objective reality seemed to be more memory than fact. Even the Rift seemed to lose its virulent, green-gold urgency. And Divine Justinia’s horrified and frightened face grew more distinct.

“What’s going on, here?” he heard himself ask again. Or for the first time. It emerged from his throat as a sore and dreamy drawl.

 _“Run, while you can!”_ the Divine said, her faded-dark eyes locked on his, seeing and unseeing. _“You must warn them!”_

Before Mahanon could even formulate a response, the flickering shadow beyond the Divine coalesced once more, twin fiery glows flashing into being and directed at him.

“ _We have an intruder_ ,” a new voice, male and somehow lifeless, seemed to reverberate off the entirety of this bleached existence. Mahanon froze as the heretofore dead other-boy climbed out of his seven years old grave. And he dragged the put-away memories and knowledge of the first two-thirds of Mahanon’s life—including the raging blood-lust and broken-hearted despair which were all that remained of Vel Rilienus—out of that cursed and salted earth with him.

“ _Magister_ ,” Vulpo Helvius and Vel Rilienus hissed from Mahanon’s mouth and being: hate-mad, reptilian-cold . . . as rusty as Mahanon’s lank, bloody hair and as undead as the shadow that loomed ahead.

“ _Slay the elf_ ,” the shadow directed with _every Magister’s_ negligent, self-assured confidence, and at no one or thing Mahanon could see or sense. But before even _he_ could draw his Dalish blades, Vulpo and Vel _did_ , twisting his mouth in another snarl. This one was fueled by a lifetime of rage and pain. And a promise of sweet, merciless retribution.

That same rage and pain and vengeance drove them all—Vulpo, Vel, and Mahanon—onward. They were _determined_ to take on that shadow, and made for nothing else. So, he set his foot forward one bare step toward it and—

—in a bright, white-gold flash, he found himself standing before the Rift once more, empty-handed and slumped a bit, as he stared at his restless left hand and muttered drowsily.

“— _were there_!” Cassandra was saying, her voice breaking with hope and fear once again as she drew even with him, impatient and nearly accusing. “Who attacked? And the Divine, is she. . . ? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”

“I don’t remember,” Mahanon insisted with a cautioning edge to his tone. His right hand drifted to his temple, then down to clutch at his wrist as he met the Seeker’s intent gaze.

“It was echoes of what happened here.” Solas’ calm-tense voice shattered the budding stare-down before it could really begin, and they both looked over at him. He was approaching the Rift slowly, but not cautiously. Not like a man who feared such phenomena or the nightmares it spawned. He still exuded nothing so much as his endless curiosity. Mahanon was as comforted by that consistency as he was incredulous and irritated. “The Fade bleeds into this place.”

 _And water is still wet, it would appear_ , Vel Rilienus noted into their weary-quiet psyche, with flat, empty sarcasm. Vulpo Helvius, meanwhile, was seething, rattling the prison-bars of Mahanon’s and Vel’s control, and clamoring to launch their body at the seemingly unaffected elf-mage.

Vel found his _other-boy’s_ rage amusing and comforting. A point of understanding and interrelation between them. And though _Vel’s_ instinct had been to never kill a useful ally until that ally had stopped being at least one of those things, the cold-blooded _monster-boy_ wouldn’t hesitate to end Solas should the time ever come. And he would smile while doing so.

Mahanon, exhausted beyond measure, could no longer identify any of his _own_ feelings that weren’t confusion, fear, and apprehension. Not in the sudden return of the two-ring circus that had once been his default state of being.

“This Rift is not sealed, but it _is_ closed . . . albeit temporarily,” Solas said, turning away from the Rift and facing Mahanon and Cassandra. His gaze included them both, but soon settled on Mahanon. When he spoke, his words were slow and almost apologetic. “I believe that with the Mark, the Rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the Rift will likely attract . . . attention from the other side.”

Every eye present once again landed on Mahanon, and he found a smirk that was at least part Vel Rilienus: edgy-angry-bloodthirsty. “I do, _so, enjoy_ being the center of attention.”

As if responding to that sardonic challenge, the Rift began to pulse faster, deeper, stronger. _Wronger_. The wrongness of it became infinitely more so as it flickered in and out of perceivable reality.

“That means demons! Stand ready!” Cassandra called, more for the warning and rallying of Leliana’s soldiers, than for the benefit of the other three who’d come with her through the mountains.

The large, but close space rang with the drawing of swords and sundry blades—including the right one of Mahanon’s own Dalish daggers—and thrummed with the readying of notched arrows. Mahanon gripped his right dagger carefully, and looked up at the restless Rift.

It would probably be opening again on its own. _Soon_. But not soon enough. And better that it be opened on _their_ terms, than on those of the Fade.

He raised his shaking, glowing, aching-numb left hand at the Rift. And instead of pushing at it, as he had the others, the ones he’d permanently sealed, this time . . . Mahanon _pulled_.

With everything in him, he pulled at the unusually, powerfully resistant Rift.

Energy and light, cold and magic poured out of him— _was drawn_ out of him by the stubborn Rift. Until . . . with the eerie sensation of having won the notice and focus of whatever endless abomination even the top rung of the reality food-chain feared, Mahanon felt the Rift begin to pulse and push. Toward the ruined Temple.

Toward _Mahanon_.

With a near-soundless explosion of light and energy, both of which were as cold as everything else about the Rifts and the Breach, the key Rift opened. The concussive blast of that expansion drove most of those present back, if not to their knees. Mahanon, dazed and in agony so sharp and bright, he could barely remain upright against the riptide of it, staggered to his left a few steps. Then, at the beastly, enraged roar close behind him, he swung his jangled body around to face the horror, whatever it was and as ever he had.

The demon, all twenty-ish feet of it, was little more than armored hide that completely covered its blunt head, four column-like appendages, and a mountainous torso. Clusters of avid-evil, ink-colored eyes sparkled with unnerving intelligence and malevolent presence. The green-gold light of the Breach and the Rift reflected off its shining hide, proud and showcasing, as it loomed in the formerly spacious nave. Fear, thick and reeking, swept through the ranks of the remaining soldiers, and through Mahanon's companions, and the demon's nostrils flared, as if picking up and relishing the scent. It chuckled like gravel-gargled perdition.

Mahanon sighed, and wrapped his foolish hope around himself, and the two others who shared his varied and largely unfortunate existence.

There was a queer tunneling sensation to his perception as he sank with gratitude into the deepest hinterlands of his own psyche, and let a buzzing-gleeful, frenetic-murderous _Vel Rilienus_ take the reins for the first time in nearly seven years.

Mahanon's last extraneous thought was to hope that at least _Vel’s_ sense of what their left hand was doing and of what it was still capable was as true as ever.

And then Cassandra was shouting: “ _NOW_!” and the air was alive with arrows and blades and magic. Vel Rilienus was _moving—_ seeking out weak-spots on the massive, horrifying demon, and laughing manically as he struck and was struck, drew blood and was bled.

Vulpo Helvius roared and raged, and fueled Vel’s joyous fight with his wrath and determination. And _Mahanon_ wove himself _around_ himself—and around his physical agony and bifurcated psyche . . . around his reawakened triplets—and _held himself_ , all of himself, together as best he could while trying to save the world.

And they fought, in their own ways. All three of them. As did all of their companions and the soldiers who’d survived the charge on the Temple. Vel Rilienus leapt and laughed, dodged and ducked the demon’s blows and magic, striking fast at the backs and undersides of its appendages and torso. Slashing at lower back and sides—and even its neck, once, when such an opportune shot presented itself.

In his element, he _acted_ , as was his strength. And though he generally preferred a quick, sledgehammering path to victory, Vel was also quite skilled at death by a thousand cuts. With Vulpo’s self-renewing rage—and despair and pain—to drive him and give the body they all shared some semblance of energy and vigor, Vel was relentless. As close to _content_ as he ever expected to be in these post-Septimus days.

Mahanon observed and tempered himself, and his facets, the _other_ and the _monster_ , allowing them their moments even as he kept one weather eye and ear on the Rift.

If, and when he could close it, the demon would lose its connection to the Fade and the lion’s share of its power.

As Vel practically danced around the huge, roaring-bellowing beast—the monster-boy was silent, now, but for occasional grunts of exertion—striking whenever possible, Mahanon occasionally sheathed the left Dalish blade and flung their arm out, even as they were on the move to another, hopefully better vantage-point.

It became an easy thing, early in the interminable battle, to draw the focus and energy of the Rift to himself, and from the demon wielding it. Sealing the Rift—pushing all the power and intent that flowed out of it back to the source—was a different story.

The Rift's resistance was towering, and its power and energy boundless.

Around the trio, in the wake of their continuing failures, the brave and noble and desperate screamed and died continuously. . . .

Until finally, Vel somersaulted behind a jagged, man-high shard of red lyrium—careful to the point of not-so-irrational fright about not touching it with so much as a thread of his tunic—and waited for Cassandra and Leliana to carry out some concerted attack on the beast’s right side.

Leliana, quick though she was, nearly caught the creature’s lightning whip across her back, but Cassandra’s fortuitous slash at its ribs with her greatsword spoiled its aim. Leliana sprinted away, Cassandra ducked its uncoordinated swing on her, and Varric put a bolt in one of its many eyes, courtesy of the lovely and accurate Bianca.

The beast roared and flailed and raged, temporarily blinded. _Mahanon_ saw his chance and darted from behind his suspect cover, left blade sheathed and arm raised as he ran toward the Rift, pulling then pushing at it with his burning-cold hand. After a small eternity, he felt a shift in the energy that linked him to this key Rift. Felt as ever he had when picking a difficult lock to a tight schedule.

But, as with recalcitrant locks, eventually, tumblers began turning. Slowly, laboriously, but it was enough to give Mahanon faith and certainty that the lock wasn’t as rusted and fused as it’d seemed on first, and subsequent attempts. So, he _pushed_ and _willed_ at this lock, not to open a door, but to shut it forever. . . .

Then the beast faltered in the midst of grunting some hastily-cobbled spell or other, and swung on a staggering, trembling, and already _dodging_ Mahanon with its huge, heavy fist. Thankfully _not_ the one wielding the lightning-whip.

His connection to the Rift once more interrupted and broken, Mahanon wearily let Vel take over again. The monster-boy dodged semi-nimbly away from the demon’s slow swings. But only barely, winded and rendered less effective by exhaustion and injury as he was. His injured left leg had been on fire for most of the fight, but now, like his left arm, it’d gone numb and unreliable.

He limp-jogged away from the creature, ducking the pulsing, mocking light of the Rift, searching for cover or a higher vantage-point in preparation for Mahanon to try and seal it once more.

But the demon stumbled after him. Was clearly ready to deal with him as its chief nuisance and threat. Vel didn’t dare to assume that it was enraged to the point of incautiousness, however. Though that would certainly make it more likely he and his allies would live to seal this Rift, if not the Breach. Uncontrolled anger was an opponent’s best weapon against one, after all. And Vel Rilienus had yet to meet the weapon, his own or another’s, that he couldn’t quickly turn to his advantage.

Vel lured the beast on and away from the Rift, from the source of its strength and magic, though he couldn’t lure it far enough to make much difference. So, he led it a tight and desperate chase around the denuded Temple as he sought a way up to the gallery the archers had recently abandoned. Somewhere out of direct reach of the beast, and where Mahanon could perhaps have a better chance—a _longer_ chance than a mere few seconds—to seal the Rift. And Cassandra and the others could chip away at the beast’s armored, but hopefully not invincible back.

Cassandra shouted something Vel couldn’t make out as he sprinted past her cover. He couldn’t make out much of anything over the beast’s chilling roars. Over the beat and rush of his own heart and blood in his ears. Whatever Cassandra shouted, it drew the others to her, even the last few soldiers. Drew them in to rally. Likely to launch a final, diversionary offensive on the creature. Even Solas, leaping agilely over an outcropping of red lyrium, joined them, the focus of his staff glowing bright and cold, like a diamond left in a field of snow at midday.

Vel, realizing he wasn’t paying acceptable attention to his movements, curtailed his focus. But in the moments that followed, three things happened, like a perfect storm of Fate and Accident . . . and perhaps _Providence_.

The demon—which had gone eerily silent, a thing which should have tipped Vel to some imminent, game-changing wickedness on its part—hurled some sort of spell at him, gargled and grunting and terse. Vel instinctively zig-zagged, but not fast enough, and felt the force of it hit him in the back like warmth and lassitude. He stumbled and started to fall as his left leg gave out completely.

As he fell, he swung around to face the oncoming beast, his right blade clutched and raised in limp, trembling defiance as it laughed and stumped toward him.

He hit the stone-littered ground hard, crying out from the pain of impact. But his right hand never faltered, raised in defense and challenge to the oncoming horror. From the corners of his spell-weighty eyes he saw Solas’ staff flare brighter than ever as he leveled a spell of his own at the demon's back . . . fire, perhaps. Or lightning, as he seemed to favor.

But, a moment later, the wicked juggernaut stopped mid-stride, its massive bulk encased in foot-thick, glittering ice.

Ice that was already beginning to run and melt. . . .

Nonetheless, the frozen demon was instantly attacked by the dozen or so warriors still on the field: Cassandra, Varric, Leliana, and the remainder of the archers who’d once lined the galleries. With their sword-bearing comrades broken and dead all over the ruins, it had fallen to them to draw swords or commandeer them, and continue the necessary work of bringing the beast down.

And if the beast wasn't brought down here and now, the battle was done for all.

Vel pushed away such certain, but ultimately unhelpful truth, and swore as he realized his numb, left hand was number and icier than ever. Crackling fiercely with green-gold lightning-fire that was doing its best to devour him, body and soul.

There'd be no more wielding his left blade, now, and no more _anything else_ , very shortly. The combined power of the Rift and the Breach was surely about to kill him. Kill _them_. Not that it mattered, if Rift and demon weren't put to bed in that order, within the next minute, or sooner. Weapons and spells were stop-gaps that had become ineffective. At last, there was only Fade-magic left to combat Fade-magic.

“ _Now_!” Cassandra shouted, her hoarse, breathless voice seeming to ring throughout the entire world. Vel Rilienus tore his gaze away from his hand and stepped _back_ in his roomy psyche. Vulpo Helvius channeled his fury and determination into their numb, burning-cold arm. And, struggling against the imperative lethargy of the demon's last spell and his own soul-weariness, _Mahanon_ surged forward for what they _all_ knew would be his final chance. “ _Seal the Rift_!”

Still fighting the sluggishness resulting from the well-aimed spell, and enervation in the wake of his own spent life-force, Mahanon raised his ten-tons-of-ice left arm. He managed a grim, desperate rallying of his own will and fortitude, pulling his others, his _brothers_ , closer than closest to bolster and boost, to support and shield—to _amplify_ —him. Then he reached toward the Rift with all that he was. Casting away the cotton-and-wool protection Solas had—possibly—wrapped around his mind to save it, Mahanon stopped fighting the Rift and Breach, and their shared threnody. Opened himself to a frightful, hideous, _powerful_ dirge of barriers broken, defenses dissolved, and hopelessness sewn.

Mahanon opened himself to dinning silence and throbbing stillness—to chaos, and the _death_ that would surely follow—with the defiant cries of three men, united at last for this end-game. This final stand. This doom.

Bending the merged determination, dedication, and _focus_ of his once-sundered selves on the pulsing, expanding Rift, Mahanon drew its cold-bright-wrong light—its _gaze and attention_ —to himself, and _pushed_.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **11/19/2017: Final two chapters to be posted within the next ten days, and the beginning of the next fic in the series posted within the next three weeks. Barring the unforeseen.  
> **  
>  ::crosses fingers _and_ toes::


	9. Of Humanity and Divinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation and showdown, regarding the “walking-stick” Rilienus found under their bed. Things are said. Mistakes are made. Angst and pain. Forgiveness and hope. But in all honesty . . . the ending’s not what it seems. There’s smut and stuff, too, but . . . NGL, it’s still pretty much a sob-fest. You’ve been warned. Apologies, though, if that helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Brace yourselves. This is the chapter in which the other shoe drops. Seriously. Partial identity-reveals for both members of primary/main pairing (Dorian Pavus/Male Lavellan Inquisitor | Rilienus). Assumptions of betrayal and attending heartbreak. Using magical means for physical restraint _without_ consent, for desperate and selfish purposes, plus the resulting fallout/trauma. Violation of another’s agency. Threats of violence. Murderous intent. Remorse, emotional detachment, symptoms of PTSD, dissociation. Attempted suicide/averted suicide, if you squint. Consent to sexual activity, which may be considered dubious, due to character’s altered mental state. Smut.

  **Chapter Eight: Of Humanity and Divinity**

* * *

 

 **“Ah, ne'er so dire a Thirst of Glory boast,**  
**Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost!**  
**Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join;**  
**To err is human, to forgive divine.”**

**—Alexander Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_ , Part II, ** **Lines 322-325**

* * *

 

“Vel?”

 

The mage’s voice sounded from the doorway to their bedroom. It was soft and reluctant and _scared_ , despite the calm enquiry of timber and tone.

 

Vel, still holding the staff Little Girl had found because of the curiosity and keenness of mind _Vel_ had ignored for nearly a year, merely sat on the edge of the bed. He stared out the window into the overcast, late-winter sunlight.

 

Like everything else, that sunlight didn’t seem to make sense—not now, not on a day that had gone so sere and dim and _lightless_ —but he was too tired and worn-down to look away. He didn’t want to look again at the staff he held, not even once, and he knew he _couldn’t bear_ to look at the mage blocking the quickest exit.

 

He blinked, slow and heavily, tears running down his face as they had been since . . . since. The mage said his name again and moved closer. Hesitantly, carefully, but closer. Vel shuddered and twitched. Then jumped when a warm, slightly bath-pruned hand settled on his shoulder.

 

The staff clattered to the floor, loud, definite, and all the statement Vel couldn’t seem to make. His hand, at least, was glad to be rid of it, and its living thing-thrum.

 

“Dearest,” the mage said, his voice rough and worried as he stepped ‘round the foot of their bed and sat next to Vel. He settled close enough that they could touch all along their sides, but far enough that they didn’t . . . not quite. His hand slid from Vel’s shoulder, to the center of his back, as if attempting to steady and reassure. Which would’ve been funny if Vel could remember the feel and shape of humor.

 

“Little Girl was lost under the bed and scared,” he said absently, eyes narrowing as the light from the window seemed to grow starker. Brittle, and dimmer than ever. “She was _crying_ , so I reached under to get her out. I found your . . . found _that_.” Vel gestured vaguely at the staff on the floor. “Tucked up in the frame.”

 

“Vel,” the mage said, sounding anxious and guilty. Then: “I can explain. If you’ll just . . . _look at me and listen_. . . .”

 

“ _Is_ it yours, then?”

 

“Vel. . . .” the mage sighed. “Yes. That _is_ my staff. I’m a mage.” The hand on Vel’s back trembled and curled. “And I know I don’t deserve your lenience or forgiveness, your patience or even consideration, but I’m asking you for all four. For you to let me explain and apologize—to listen, and . . . and _look at me. Please_ , Vel.”

 

Vel grinned, hard and miserable. He was cold all over, but for the throb of his wet, aching eyes. “Why? So that you can cast a spell on me easier? Assuming you haven’t already?” Snorting, he hunched forward, nearly doubled over with a pain that wasn’t remotely physical. But the mage’s hand followed, warm and right even now.

 

“I have never used my magic on you. Not even to heal you, though the temptation was great after some of the more . . . intense pub-brawls, in the beginning of our arrangement,” the mage said quietly. “I would never. Not without your consent. And though I don’t know the story behind _why_ that’s so . . . I know that your consent regarding such will _never_ be freely given. Under any circumstances, even _in extremis_.”

 

The mage sounded so sad. So small. So broken.

 

That sent a rush of bright-hot rage through Vel like a tidal wave, tall and encompassing. It crashed upon his shore and washed away much of his protective numbness, leaving him partially raw and completely naked.

 

“You lied to me,” he heard himself say as he straightened up once more. His voice was breathless and tiny. Shocked and far too young. Too vulnerable. “ _All this time, you lied_ . . . and I _let you_. I’m such a fool. . . !”

 

“ _No_.” The mage’s arm wrapped around Vel’s shoulders, but he didn’t pull Vel closer. His hand on Vel’s bicep, though, was tight, if with restrained vehemence. “You simply wanted to believe in someone. In _me_. There’s nothing strange or wrong or _foolish_ about that, Vel. _I’m_ the one who . . . I’ve known since nearly the beginning that you aren’t fond of magic-wielders. That you . . . bear considerable animus for them, in general. But even in the beginning, if nothing else about how I felt was clear, this was: _I did not want you to hate me_. I couldn’t bear seeing that sort of contempt in your lovely eyes, and aimed at _me_. I’d have done anything to make that not happen. And I . . . suppose I did, after all.”

 

“Yes, you did. You hid the truth of what you are, from me. Even when you knew hating you or not was _my choice alone_ , not yours to make or control.” Vel’s vision grew blurry and smeared, and he blinked until it wasn’t, even though such clearing scalded his cold cheeks. “You made me love you against my instincts and every example of my life. Made me forget how to live without you. Made me think I was _safe_. . . .”

 

“Vel, my guardian angel, my fierce and _perfect_ protector, where _you_ are concerned, there is _no safer place_ than by my side. In my arms. _I promise you that_ ,” the mage said, shaking, but insistent, the clutch of arm and squeeze of hand tightening. Vel laughed, small and drunk-sounding.

 

“But you’re a _liar_ , aren’t you? You’ll say _whatever_ to get what you want.”

 

“ _You_ are all that I want, _serah_. Only you. For always. I will spend forever proving that, starting this very moment, if you let me. And if proof means destroying my staff—casting it upon a pyre or throwing it into a river, to be washed out to sea—then I will. If you ask that of me . . . I will.” The mage pulled Vel close and tight, his body shaking. Or perhaps it was Vel’s. Or both of them. In the distraction that followed, of tender kisses on his temple and along the side of his face, and desperate, near-inaudible moans in his messy hair, Vel had no sure-bets. He no longer believed in certainties. “Men have done far worse than _lie_ , in the name of love, my Dearest and Only, and _will do_ far worse, still. Which is no excuse for my despicable dishonesty, my manipulation, and my cowardice . . . it is simply my truth. _You_ are my truth. My reason for everything. Every breath in and out. Every attempt to _be_ better and _do better_. I have done a _horrible_ thing, yes, in the name of the love I bear for you and fear of its loss. And I _never_ thought myself capable of being _quite_ so selfish as this. Never thought _I_ could . . . but even if it makes me the worst sort of person in your eyes—if you only believe _one_ thing about me _other_ than that absolute worst thing . . . _believe that I love you_. And that I would sink to any desperate nadir to prove it. To keep you. To convince you to _stay_.”

 

The mage’s voice cracked and broke like a shattered focus on the last word, and the gaping, aching hole in Vel’s chest turned over as if it was actually still . . . _something_ , rather than merely an injured absence.

 

“All you mages do is _lie_. Or use whatever awful means you deem best to get what you want. That’s all you care about . . . _taking_. Mothers, sisters, brothers. Lives. _Hope_ , even.” Vel shook his head, tilting it away from the mage’s reverent kisses and nuzzles. “You take it all, to the very last, and leave. And then I have nothing left. No place or purpose. No family or people who matter. To whom _I matter_. I don’t have _anything_ left and I die.” When the mage leaned in again to kiss his cheek, and murmur his name and disagreement, Vel shuddered, but didn’t fight the contact. He hadn’t the energy, or so he told himself. “And I suppose that in the end, that’s what you _really_ want. My destruction. My death. For me to be erased from the world and even from memory. For me to never have existed in the first place.”

 

“No, Vel, that’s not—”

 

“Why _is that_? Why can’t you all just _let me be_?” Vel asked, though it was half-moan, and turned to look at the mage at last. He’d never seen the other man cry, but he was seeing it in that moment. His gorgeous, tawny-tan face was gray and drawn and wet, his stormy eyes desolate and reddened. He appeared to be even more scared and hopeless than he had been the night he’d staggered into Vel’s misbegotten life. Vel couldn’t understand why a mage should look so bereft, having won . . . whatever outcome he’d been after. “What _more_ do you want? You’ve taken _everything_ that I was and now, everything that I _am_. There’s nothing left, but for my body to lay down and die. _Is_ that what you want?”

 

The mage closed his eyes and sagged. “I don’t know whom in your past hurt you so horribly . . . destroyed you so _completely_ , Vel Rilienus, but _I’m not them. I’m not that mage_. The only thing I wish from you is another chance to be the man you thought I was. And . . . I want the way you used to look at me, even just an hour ago. I would not _demand_ such from you, but if you offered them freely . . . I would accept them joyously. They would be the greatest treasures I could hope to hold. And in return, I would find a way to give you the world.”

 

When the mage opened his eyes, more tears rolled out, but his gaze was steady. The empty space in Vel’s chest ached acutely, for a place where nothing was any longer, nor would ever be again.

 

“You know, barely a quarter of a year into our arrangement, I wanted nothing more than to whisk you away from this dreadful city. To Rivain or Antiva—or even Orlais! Imagine _us_ in Val Royeaux! Wintering in Halamshiral!” The mage laughed, quiet and wistful. “Or anywhere. _Anywhere_. Just a place where we could start afresh and never have to be wary or scared of either of our pasts again.”

 

“You’d have lied to me forever, if you hadn’t been caught,” Vel knew and whispered, and the mage sighed.

 

“Possibly. I’d be lying, _now_ , if I claimed the opposite _unequivocally_. For the fact is . . . I fear _losing you_ more than I fear _death_. And if lying and never practicing magic ever again was all it took to hold onto you . . . I’d probably have lived that lie for the rest of my magic-less, and deliriously happy life with you.”

 

Vel shivered. “Why would you want to spend a lifetime living a lie, just to keep some ghetto-scum criminal as a guard-dog and personal catamite? Surely a _Magister_ can do so much better in either category?”

 

That devastated expression and the gray eyes reigning above it flickered fast, anger-disbelief-sorrow-weariness.

 

“Even after all this time,” the mage said softly, bereft once more, “you still don’t understand that you’re _not_ and have never been _merely_ that. That since I met you, I’ve _never_ seen you simply as a collection of necessary advantages to keep at my beck and call. That . . . you are _dear to me_ in ways I’ll never fully be able to express.”

 

Vel didn’t reply and, with another sigh, the mage looked down at his bare knees. It was then that Vel noticed the other man was naked. And for the first time ever, _Vel_ wasn’t responding physically to the elegant, impossible beauty of him.

 

“I don’t know how to say it more plainly, Vel. I love you. _I am in love with you_ ,” the mage murmured, meek and lost and oddly surrendered. “I’ve been falling since the moment our eyes first met and I’ll probably be falling forever. You are the good thing that I would commit _any_ wrong to have. To _keep_. Just _tell me_ what it would take . . . what I can _do_ to make you once again look at me like _I’m your good thing, as well_.”

 

Glancing away as the mage looked up, Vel shook his head and turned his gaze back to the window. The light was at last faltering, gray, and bleary. It would snow, soon, Vel supposed. “Nothing. There’s nothing. Nothing to do or say or feel, anymore. Nothing.”

 

“I don’t accept that.”

 

Vel snorted, though the stony resolve in the mage’s quiet-meek demeanor made something within him, perhaps the gaping, wounded absence, twitch and throb painfully. “Your acceptance is irrelevant.”

 

The silence that fell between them had settled for several minutes, minutes in which Vel could barely draw an adequate breath, let alone move. When the mage spoke, his voice was crisp and stiff. “Had I asked you if you would deign to keep company with a mage—a spoiled, selfish, drunken, down-on-his-luck _altus_ —who was being sporadically pursued by his own House’s retainers, what would your answer have been? If I’d told you the whole truth three, six, nine months ago, and asked you to stay? To take a chance that I wasn’t like the others? What would your answer have been?”

 

 _It would have been_ yes _. It was_ you, domine _. If you’d asked_ that first night _, I would have said_ yes _. Because I loved you even then, and would have done almost anything to stay near you. Almost anything_ , Vel knew with a certainty that destroyed some large and formerly unassailable protection around himself. It felt old and adamant and monolithic. Both fortress and prison. But it tumbled down like a collection of haphazardly stacked pebbles, leaving Vel with no shelter, no subterfuge, and no walls to keep what remained of _himself_ in, and whomever “Septimus” had made of him out.

 

“I suppose we’ll never know,” he said aloud, bleak and soft as a final dusk. Like an automaton, one powered by misery, Vel stood gingerly. As he did, the room spun briefly, but wildly, and he faltered. But, as had become something of a norm, the mage was right there, standing by him, catching him and holding him steady. Holding him _up_.

 

Suddenly, Vel went cold as he realized something. The most terrible thing he’d ever known, in fact. At this realization, the emptiness consuming Vel chest-first expanded, and twitched and throbbed intensely. He could barely think or breathe over the pain and icy _horror_ of it.

 

“You . . . you’re _making me_ feel this way—making me _think_ I love you. It’s all just your bloody magic, isn’t it? All just . . . fake and _forced on me_.” Vel raised his teary eyes to the mage’s startled-blank face once more. “You _made_ me love you, didn’t you? Made me forget myself and _lose_ myself in how much I _n-need_ to be with you. M-made me need your t-touch and smiles and _affection_.”

 

The mage blinked, then began to shake his head and sputter, seeming at least as horrified as Vel. “I . . . I would _never_ —Vel, _no_ —”

 

“So sayeth the confirmed liar.” Vel laughed, tired and more than a little hysterical. The mage moved closer— _pulled Vel closer_ —and held his gaze solemnly, steadily.

 

“On my life _and_ yours, Vel Rilienus, I would _never_ attempt to control, change, or overthrow your mind, or anyone else’s. It would take the darkest and worst sort of blood magic to perform such a feat, and I may be a liar and a wastrel. Selfish and greedy. But I’m _no blood mage_.” Those strong, supportive hands shifted from Vel’s right bicep and left hip, to his shoulders. They were still warm and grounding, despite everything. “I wouldn’t use such on my _direst_ enemies, never mind the man I’ll love until the end of Time!”

 

“More lies,” Vel mumbled, sad and small, shutting his eyes tight on the light and the mage’s pleading, sincere gaze. On the belief that wanted to blossom in that gaping, aching absence within. To fill that space with something sweeter and kinder than the void darkness that currently ruled and kept it. “How can I believe a word you’ve said or will ever say? Even bloody _hello?_ You’re a liar _and_ a mage. You are no one _anyone_ with sense would trust or listen to or l-love.”

 

“Dearest, _please_ . . . don’t say that. . . .” the mage plead as Vel pulled away and shoved past him—clutching the achy left side of his chest briefly as he strode to the door. The evening prior, the mage had divested Vel of most of his clothing and weapons in the main room. Vel was certain his breeches and the Dalish daggers were on the floor, somewhere between the couch and the en suite. He’d grab them and Little Girl, and leave. Barefoot, if he had to. He wasn’t going to risk lingering just to search for sodding boots.

 

Vel was nearly to the door when the mage bit out a word, terse and clipped. The spell hit Vel in the back before he even understood what was happening. Mid-step, he froze and was paralyzed. But for blinking and breathing, and flushing with rage and blanching with fear, he was unable to move or react.

 

After the first few seconds of panic and struggle, Vel forced himself to some semblance of mental calm, if not emotional. He couldn’t string together a thought or plan, and the numb paralysis of his body seeped inward, toward his already-broken core. In the silence of the room, he could hear the near-silent _plink_ of snowflakes flurrying against the panes of the bedroom window and the soft pad of the mage’s unhurried approach.

 

Shuddering was, apparently, another involuntary response of which his body was still capable.

 

“I love you, Vel Rilienus,” the mage said, shaky and intense, but adamant. Vel could feel that increasing proximity, then the heat of his arrival. Of the other’s body behind him, followed by a hesitant, then desperate embrace. The mage’s arms wound around Vel’s arms and chest, palms flat and warm on Vel’s biceps as he squeezed tight. He buried his face in Vel’s hair and inhaled deeply, shivering and swaying them both. Thus, they stood, closer than skin, the mage silent and possessive, Vel silent and numb.

 

Then Vel noticed the mage was starting to get hard against the small of his back, rapid and insistent, as ever. At that realization, the little color left in Vel’s world started to drain away. “From the deepest, most defenseless element of me, I am _addicted_ to you. Your smiles, your eyes, the scent of your skin and hair, the way you call me _domine_ with every bit of adoration and admiration in your being. _Addicted_. And I . . . would not willingly suffer the loss of those things . . . or of you.”

 

The mage kissed Vel’s head, over to his temple, then down his face, lingering at the junction of jaw and earlobe, then nuzzling and nipping at Vel’s neck.

 

Getting hard in response to the mage’s touch and blandishments was, apparently, yet another involuntary response of which his body was still capable.

 

Vel shuddered again and his throat somehow forced out a husking, wounded whimper. The mage only clutched at him tighter.

 

“Please _believe me_ , Dearest, that I am a _slave_ to you! Lost in perpetuity to the way my heart flutters and skips beats, not just every time I _see_ you and not just every time you _smile_ at me. But every time you _look at me_ like I’ve given you the greatest gift in the world just by entering a room, or brushing your hair back from your face, or trouncing you at chess.” The mage laughed, as shaky and intense as his pretty declarations. The fleeing of all the world’s color was also taking the stark brightness of day with it, winnowing Vel’s vision to a darkening tunnel at the end of which was swiftly-guttering, gray dimness. The only hope left to him, he knew, was that he’d never again awaken from _this_ darkness. That if he couldn’t keep happiness nor peace, nor even the joyless, but numb existence to which he’d so long clung, then he might as well find a lasting oblivion. “Vel . . . you are my _Amatus_. My _love_. The _only_ one I want. _Ever_. [I love you more than words can wield the matter—dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty! Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare . . . no less than life](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.1.1.html>)! I . . . I love you so deeply I no longer recall what it is _not_ to be _happily drowning_ in that love. Drowning in _you_!”

 

The mage laughed again, and it trembled with unhinged delight. Unstable glee. An accelerating, building unsoundness Vel knew was as lacking in reason and pause as the continued ache in his chest. And as the mage continued to babble on about the depth and breadth and height of his adoration, Vel sagged in the confines of magical paralysis and those caging arms. He shivered uncontrollably from the energy of that rousing touch and of the mage’s power prickling along his skin. When light and knowledge retreated to a distant, anemic, final pinpoint, he dove with relief into darkness and unknowing. His eyes fluttered shut and he urged them not to open ever again, involuntarily or otherwise. . . .

 

So, it was something of a disappointment, even to Vel’s numbed and blasted psyche when light, bright and warm, and the color of a rainy dawn—gold, but with gray at its heart—came into being. Cast away all hopes of darkness and unknowing, and the only peace to be found for the likes of Vel Rilienus.

 

That light wrapped around him like arms. Like love. Like _salvation_ , even though he knew they were the end of him in some ultimate way.

 

And when those light-arms held him, and whispered of home and the world and _love_ —as mad and broken as anything, but deeper than the vast gulf between stars and as eternal—even though Vel knew the price of those things was pain, he settled in those arms. Even though he knew the wild sweetness of the having was also as bitter as rue . . . he let himself be drawn _back_. . . .

 

. . . and so, he found himself blinking and squinting up into worried, frantic gray-gold eyes that were more red and wet than ever, but far saner than he might have expected, had he not been numbed beyond all expectation.

 

“Never do that again!” _the mage_ exclaimed, frightened and angry and _relieved_ , hugging Vel’s prone body. Vel was half in the mage’s lap and half on the floor, from the feel, but held close and tight, subject to a rain of desperate kisses all over his face and hair. “I don’t know where you went or _how_ , but _never do that again_! It was like you were _dying_ —I could barely feel you or hear you or _sense_ you—you were _ceasing to be_ , and . . . and I nearly went mad trying to bring you back! If I hadn’t been able to, I’d have done my best to follow after, you may rely upon _that_! I am by your side no matter the end that awaits us! I’d march into the _Abyss,_ Vel Rilienus—you sweet, sensitive, _overdramatic ass—_ if being with you for always meant such a necessity! And . . . I’m _sorry_. So _very_ sorry that I almost . . . never again. _Never_ again. So, _you_ are never, _never_ to do _that_ again!”

 

The babbling mage rocked them both compulsively, his embrace smothering, his remonstrations and apologies turning to hitches and sobs as Vel laid there, merely blinking at the near-far exit, and frowning.

 

Vel wondered if frowning counted as an involuntary movement, or if the spell of paralysis had been removed.

 

 _There’s only one way to find out_ , he told himself, and before his mind or the absence in his chest could dissuade him, he was _moving_. Growling and freeing himself from that cage-arms embrace . . . taking the mage down with a basic throw and sitting on his chest. He pinned the larger, but now defenseless man’s arms with his knees and stared down into surprised, but adoring eyes.

 

 _Trusting_ eyes.

 

That threw Vel more than anything had, but for getting hit with that spell of paralysis.

 

“I should throttle the life from you,” he said without inflection. His face felt like a disinterested mask. It hadn’t felt that way since shortly after meeting the man he now had pinned and helpless. Or as helpless as a mage _ever_ was.

 

Vel knew he would do well to remember that the danger of any mage was _not_ their _physical_ prowess.

 

“You _should_ throttle me, yes,” the mage agreed simply, his gaze tired, sad, and broken-open. But still adoring. Accepting. _Understanding_. “It’s what I deserve for . . . for what I just did. _Would have_ done, had you not . . . yes. You’re quite right. A throttling is the _least_ of what I’ve earned, I’d say.”

 

Vel tilted his head with detached curiosity that was really only one of those things. “As if you’d sit idly while I tried.”

 

“Well, it isn’t as if I could _physically_ stop you.” The mage’s brow furrowed. “And I’d rather die than ever _harm you_ with my magic again.”

 

Vel’s gaze faltered, then darted around the room, pausing when it fell on the very top of the staff, which was all of it that was visible from his current position. It appeared to still be exactly where he’d dropped it. His eyes narrowed.

 

“You don’t have to harm me to neutralize me. You wouldn’t even need your _staff_ to do so, would you?”

 

The mage hesitated, closing his eyes for a few moments before opening them and answering gravely. “No.”

 

“Then why haven’t you _done something_?” Vel demanded, his voice hissing and cracking. Tears ran down the sides of the mage’s face, unheeded.

 

“Why should I?” Another laugh, but this one was weary and grim. “Anything I do will only cause me to lose you more quickly. I’ve _no hopes_ that you’ll stay and no right to ask, not after that reprehensible stunt I just pulled, but I won’t push you away _faster_! Bloody me and beat me—throttle me and kill me—whatever you wish, if it means you’ll _stay_ to do it.”

 

Vel’s empty chest felt as if it was collapsing, heavy and unstable. Crumbling. Instinctively, he almost sneered or snarled, but was neither inclined to, nor did he possess the reserves to fake such a cognitively dissonant expression. But he refused to let himself dissolve into a mess of tears and sobbing and begging. Of _clinging_. So, he shrugged, instead, as he might have and had the very first night he’d met this mage.

 

“Our _arrangement_ is at an end, _serah_ ,” he said with a disinterest that also no longer felt natural—that felt downright _wrong_. But after the past hour, Vel knew that what _felt_ right and what _was_ right were often quite different things. He ignored the way the ache of that growing void within increased exponentially, and continued to speak with placidity that at least _sounded_ flawless. “I shall expect no remuneration from you for my . . . services, but discretion and distance. Do not follow me. Do not find me. _Do not_ contact me.” Now, Vel leaned closer, holding the mage’s soft-sad-sorry gaze with his flat, murderous one. He pressed the mage into the floor heavily, with hard, threatening hands on those warm, firm shoulders. “And if you _ever_ attempt to use your damned sorcery to waylay me again, _mage_ . . . _I will kill you without hesitation_. Assuming you’re stupid enough _not_ to kill _me first_.”

 

The silence that followed that statement—promise or lie, Vel knew not which—was long. Or it seemed so. For the duration, the mage merely stared up into Vel’s eyes, his own brimming with regret and desolation . . . then with surprise and doubt . . . then with wonder and a wary sort of courage.

 

Vel was stunned and confused— _floored_ , as the mage smiled, small and tender. The heart and soul of him seemed to shine out of that gaze. Out of _all_ of him. And . . . it was melancholy and golden, like a rainy dawn. _Beautiful_.

 

For a few moments, the mage was even too bright to _look at_ , and Vel had to blink several times for his eyes to adjust. To take a few deep, bracing breaths to regain what passed for his equilibrium.

 

“No hope _and_ no right,” the mage finally repeated, wry and apologetic, but glowing intangibly brighter, and . . . _hopeful,_ nonetheless. “But I ask you, anyway, Vel Rilienus: Please, stay?”

 

And perhaps it was the unadorned simplicity of the statement—perhaps it was that, in the face of the unaffected, soul-weary honesty and humility that shone from the mage, as well as the fierce and at last _truly true_ love Vel was trying his damnedest to ignore—but the rather large part of Vel that’d been corrupted and . . . weakened by his former self’s softness and dreams and hopes _wanted_ to. Wanted to _stay_.

 

But it was surely mere reflex, to give-in to such an urge, since Vulpo Helvius was, at last, truly in his lonely grave. Him, and his ridiculous, vulnerable _heart_.

 

 _Vel Rilienus_ was _lucky_ to be rid of both, finally. To be rid of anything or anyone that recalled their existence for even a moment. Especially this romance-addled _mage_.

 

“Vel,” the mage said softly, his voice shaking and breaking. Urgent. “ _Amatus_. . . .”

 

“ _Don’t_ call me that, _Magister_.” Vel’s right hand released the mage’s shoulder and drifted to his own throbbing temple. His fingers were cold and shaking, and he fought a sudden and thick fog of disorientation. It left him dazed and blinking, moaning raggedly and entirely uncertain as to whether his victory was Pyrrhic, at best.

 

“ _Amatus, please—_ ”

 

“ _No_.”

 

“I _love_ you!” The mage said it _again_ , as if that love was some sort of weapon Vel would be powerless to stand against. Vel felt obliged to prove him wrong and, with a spiteful shove at the mage’s ridiculously gorgeous shoulders, scrambled to his feet. He _stood_ . . . listed forward a few steps, then back, but righted himself and put a hand to his suddenly spinning head again.

 

“Please, stay. . . .” the mage continued to lie there, sprawled and _seemingly_ defenseless, gazing up at Vel as if at some best-beloved divinity.

 

“Shut. _Up_. Can’t think.” Vel shut his eyes again . . . so tight that his face hurt, but he could still hear the mage shifting about. Sitting up and getting to his knees. Vel knew that the smart move was getting out before the bastard decided to lob another spell at him, and yet. . . . “You’re a _liar_ and a m-monster!”

 

“Yes! That and _worse_! I’m _despicable_ for letting myself commandeer your agency and choice even for a moment. For lying and deceiving you. But _, please_ , Vel . . . please. I’m sorry. So sorry for the wrongs I’ve done to you, now and throughout our time together. There’s _no_ excuse, none at all. I _love you,_ and I let the worst instincts and nature fostered by my insecurities rule me. Compromise me. And _ruin_ the rare gem of _your_ trust and love and faith.” Vel started when the mage’s graceful hands took his chilled left one, pulled it to his face, and kissed Vel’s bony knuckles, then his rough, dry palm. “I _don’t_ deserve you staying. And _you_ deserve a lover who is _not_ a coward, a liar, and a villain. But I . . . I _beg_ you, _Amatus_. Don’t go. I love you. _Don’t go_.”

 

As Vel wavered and listed toward the other man, he acknowledged that, even just an hour ago, he certainly _would_ have been powerless against such a tempting falsehood. And had. But, as he forced himself to be steady and calm and without expression, he _also_ acknowledged that it was _no longer_ an hour ago. It was no longer a lot of things. “ _I said don’t._ Just . . . don’t. Don’t _call me that_ , you— _Magister. Altus_. Mage. _Whatever_ you are. You don’t mean it and you never did. You never _could_ and you never will.”

 

“The way I feel for you may be the _only_ genuine thing I’ve _ever_ felt. At least so strongly. And it is _greater_ and more enduring and more _powerful_ than _any_ spell I know,” the mage said plainly, his heart so present in his voice, Vel didn’t dare to open his eyes and meet that _gaze_ , for fear he’d once more do whatever it took to _stay_.

 

Just . . . stay.

 

“Can’t be him. Can’t be the _other_ -boy. I can’t. Can’t-can’t-can’t— _I can’t_ ,” Vel heard himself mumble, jumbled and run-together. “Not even for _you_ . . . or who I thought you were. He’s _prey_ and _I_ have to be. . . .” he hung his head for a full minute. Rocked and moaned as his psyche degenerated into a maelstrom that whirled and turned around a single pathetic, but inescapable truth. And when the minute passed, leaving him standing at the maelstrom’s quickly dwindling eye, he opened his own dry, stinging eyes to meet the mage’s wet, wide ones. They were worried and puzzled. “ _I have to be a predator_. I’d _die_ if I had to be _him_ , again. If I had to be soft and powerless and _weak_. I’d _rather be dead_ than be _him_ again. Rather be dead than be _prey_. Even _your prey_.”

 

Shaking his head and looking overwhelmed, but also more determined and dedicated— _devoted_ —than ever, the mage held Vel’s hand to his cheek. His eyes shut and he sighed, as if being brought to his bare knees and clutching Vel’s hand to his face was the height of achievement and contentment. “ _I love you, Vel_ ,” was all he said again, as if he no longer knew how to say anything else. “Please stay. Please . . . _please,_ don’t leave me, _Amatus_.”

 

Vel tried to pull away and turn away, at last and forever, but his feet and legs were rubbery and useless. He started to topple to his right the moment he shifted that foot. But the mage was on his feet and there to catch him, yet again. To hold him close and _up_ , and cover his face with fervent kisses as he quickly steered them both to their bed.

 

Once there, he sat Vel down, looking apprehensive when he was met with neither words nor resistance. He knelt in front of Vel’s still, slumped form, staring up into his ashen-pale face.

 

“ _Amatus_ ,” he began, then fell silent when Vel’s breathing hitched once, then again, then juddered out of him as the vanguard to a wave of scalding, endless tears. They scorched his eyes and his cheeks like molten lead, yet the mage didn’t burn his fingers as he caught them and dashed them away.

 

As ever he had.

 

 _As ever he would_ , Vel realized, rocked to the dead and empty core of himself, only to find _something_ waiting there in the void. Small and fragile, like an atom or an ember, or _something_ that was precious and _glowed_. Something that knew. That was _certain_. It flickered fitfully, but with will and resolve. _He would do this and nothing else, forever, if I asked it of him._ Because _I asked it of him_.

 

Even through his own tears, Vel could see the over-bright shine standing out in the gray eyes that had come to mean rightness and safety and love. Most of all . . . _love_. . . .

 

The kind that, yes, balked at no nadirs, but also knew no boundaries and no zenith. It was without end or reason or condition. It existed in and for its own perpetuity, and even when this mage stood at his tallest and proudest . . . he would ever be on his knees and at his humblest before it, both source and supplicant, tyrant and theow.

 

“ _Domine_ ,” the mage whispered, with reverence and love, and bowed his head with sincere deference, his shoulders drawing in then squaring as he looked up once more, in the midst of a shuddering exhale. There was no pride or ferocity in his unshielded eyes, only the terrible, powerful hope of the powerless and defenseless. And the shock of that heartfelt honorific on those perfect lips. “You _are_ the lord and emperor of my heart, Vel. _Of me_. If you want the truth of who I am . . . then, here it is, as simple as I can make it. _You_ are _my domine_ , the master of me, and always will be, whether or not you stay. But I . . . I _wish_ you would. I ask that you _do_.”

 

A sudden, but titanic shift rocked Vel from the depths where the ember lived, to the standing-on-end hairs all over his quaking-shaking-shocked being.

 

“ _F-Filius_?” he asked, fighting another spell of disorientation. He blinked as if to clear his eyes, even though he once more recognized the mage—the _man_ — _his love and lover_ —his _domine_ —who knelt before him, after what felt like an _eternity_ of having gone without comprehension. Without the person who’d become his reason and his heart. Without the beginning and ending of _all_ that _Vel Rilienus_ had come to mean in this world.

 

Something within him, deeper than his conscious mind, wobbled off an old and detrimental axis, onto a new and true one. Unsteady, yet, but growing surer with every moment. The bubble of aching numb that encased him—yet which seemed to spring from the absence of the heart which hadn’t been destroyed, merely wounded deeply, obscured, and reduced to its smallest, most basic component—shattered. It _shattered_ , and . . . _everything_ hurt. All was keen and sharp and bright and _vivid_ and it _hurt_ , more than anything ever had. Like a semi-dead limb regaining its full range of feeling and motion in one fell swoop.

 

“Ohhh, _Filius_ ,” he whimpered, gasping and hitching, and shrinking in on himself. “ _Domineeeeh_. . . .”

 

“Yes, _Amatus_ ,” _Septimus_ . . . _his Filius_ breathed, smiling through tears and relief, darting in to kiss the tip of Vel’s nose. “For as long as you wish it.”

 

“Where did you _go_? _Why_ did you leave?” Vel moaned and closed his eyes on Septimus’ beautiful face and adoring expression. On the certainty and lack of doubt that took him like a cyclone as he met that electric gaze. The pain and sensitivity of his new axis, and the rush of _sensation and dimension_ that came with it was breathtaking. Vel literally could not draw breaths that were fully sustaining, let alone calming. For what felt like eons he could only shake and sob under the assault of this strange awakening.

 

“I . . . went to a place that I don’t completely understand, even now. But I promise— _I swear to you, Amatus_ —that I will _never_ go to that place again. I will never _leave you_ again,” Septimus murmured, with the steely inflexibility of an oath being vowed. “And just as you’ve protected me from harm, my _dear Serah_ Rilienus, so I will do _my all_ to protect _you_. Even if that harm would come from myself. _Never again_ will I allow evil to touch you or hurt you, Dearest.”

 

“But it _always does_. Not even _you_ can stop it, Filius . . . it just _takes_ from me. Everything I love and value . . . it all gets taken from me. Carried away no matter how hard I hold on,” Vel whispered, shuddering and cold even as Septimus rubbed his arms worriedly. “Every last bit of family and happiness and hope gets swept away. Sometimes with no more animus or intent than a farmer and his plow destroying an anthill. If it takes you, too, _domine_ , I’ll be all alone again. And I don’t think I’ll survive it, this time.” Shaking his head, Vel didn’t even try to stop the continuing flow of tears. He could barely breathe, so he certainly hadn’t the wherewithal to attend to anything else. 

 

“Amatus?” Septimus breathed, half-question and half-alarm. Vel shook his heavy head, feeling so very tired and lost. 

 

“I—I thought that I left that behind when I became Vel Rilienus. Thought I’d left all the chaos and fear and uncertainty of being _Vulpo-sodding-Helvius_ in the _liberati_ ghetto where I died. And that once I left Perivantium behind— _ran the distance of an entire nation away_ —that I could be _free_. And safe. That I would be _left alone_ with whatever bit of an existence I carved out for myself. I thought that starting over—being _Vel Rilienus_ would be enough. That it would be different and _enough_. That _I_ would. . . .” winding down into silence, Vel’s right hand settled on his chest, over the arrhythmic tattoo of his battered-but-there heart. He opened his eyes just as Septimus left off rubbing his chilly arms and started brushing away redoubled tears and hitches. “ _Why, Filius_? Why did you have to _lie_ to me? _For so long_?”

 

“Because I love you so _dearly_. So madly and _greedily_. Because I’d rather have lost what little honor I had _and_ the use of my magic, than risk losing you,” Septimus whispered, blinking and sniffling as his own tears fell. But he never stopped catching Vel’s. “I mistakenly thought the brilliant apex of my love and devotion to you, was my willingness to deceive you and martyr myself to my own cowardice and dishonesty. But I understand, now. I see the truth. Too late to avoid hurting you, my precious Vel, but I understand. Love— _real, good love_ —isn’t about sinking to any nadirs to hold on. It’s about . . . loving truly enough to be brave and honest, even when the cost seems too high to bear. It’s about doing the _honorable_ thing, even when that’s not the easy thing _or_ the least painful thing. . . . “It’s about respecting _you,_ my Beloved, enough to make your own choices about whether you can love a selfish, immature mage in spite of his nature and station.” Septimus’ voice cracked even as it turned hard and brittle. “It’s about me realizing that I’m an utter hypocrite for not trusting the greatness and generosity of your _amazing_ heart . . . the heart I love more than I can bear, in some moments. And it’s about me being too craven to take a leap of faith that _your heart_ , Vel Rilienus, is more loving and capacious than _either of us_ can imagine. _You_ weren’t the fool in this _affair de Coeur_ , my Only. And I will regret my faithlessness and cowardice to my deathbed and beyond, even if they _haven’t_ cost me the one thing in this world that I value.”

 

Then he bobbed up to plant a clumsy, earnest, passionate kiss on Vel’s lips, once more meeting no resistance. He tasted of salt and rue, and something incense-bitter.

 

 _Magic_.

 

Wary and weary, Vel half-pulled away, moaning in what wanted to be negation, but sounded far more like the usual moans that resulted from Septimus’ kisses. The hands that settled of their own accord on Septimus’ lovely shoulders and firm chest, didn’t push away, as he half-hoped they would, but merely mapped out familiar, beloved, _necessary_ territory.

 

Then, tellingly, pulled Septimus closer, and deeper into the hopeful, uncertain kiss.

 

Septimus groaned, soft and needy, as his ardor took the kiss from uncertain to certain. Then from assertive, to aggressive. His hands left off cupping Vel’s tear-wet face—with his thumbs still catching Vel’s tears—to drop to Vel’s thighs. He didn’t have to exert even a little force before Vel was spreading his legs with desperate compliance, as he had been for the better part of a year. Septimus instantly moved between his thighs, his hands sliding around to grip Vel’s arse and hip, and urge him closer.

 

Vel’s body was as obedient and eager as ever, locking his ankles behind Septimus’ back as the other man’s brand-hot hands settled on his knees, running up and down and up, then inward. His callused/clever fingertips stroked the fragile skin of Vel’s inner thighs, then teased Vel’s willing prick as it rushed to stand straight up.

 

When Septimus dragged his thumb across the tip and slit, hard and slow, Vel broke their kiss with a soft, helpless cry. One that Septimus almost instantly claimed from his lips with a hungry groan. Then his ravenous kisses trailed down to Vel’s throat, lingering here and there to leave new love-bites on or near old ones.

 

His grip of Vel’s prick turned tight and intent, and it wasn’t long before Vel found himself prone on their bed, legs spread high and wide, with Septimus kneeling between his thighs once more. He was _hard_ —perhaps _painfully_ so, from the brick-red, board-rigid erectness of him—but his hot, determined hands were focused on _Vel_. The left stripped Vel’s prick hard and fast, as if both their lives depended on it. The right traced a tingling trail from Vel’s balls, along his perineum, to the throbbing, still-sore entrance of which Septimus had so recently taken his pleasure.

 

Septimus whispered a terse word Vel couldn’t make out, holding Vel’s gaze nervously as he did. And when his first two fingers pushed reluctantly into Vel’s yielding, hungry body, they were unaccountably oily and slick.

 

Even though more tears leaked from his eyes, as well as a sob that didn’t know if it was more wanton or broken-hearted, Vel arched up toward Septimus, desperate to get closer to the other man, as always. His eyes shut as Septimus prepared him with extra care, tenderness, and a clear desire to linger. He made a religion of lavishing attention and applying pressure to Vel’s spot early and often, but clamped down on the base of Vel’s cock whenever his climax raced near.

 

“You are _everything_ to me, Vel Rilienus,” he finally murmured on Vel’s lips, upon withdrawing his fingers and lowering his body to rest atop Vel’s. The weight and heat and _feel_ of him was, as ever and even now, impossibly right. “Simply everything. _Nothing_ means anything, either ahead of you or without you. Not even my magic.”

 

Vel moaned and shut his eyes tighter. “ _Please_ , Filius . . . please, _d-domine_ ,” he whispered, stuttering on the beloved honorific. But if Septimus noticed, he gave no sign. He simply thrust and ground his prick against Vel’s, then shifted himself and hitched Vel’s hips closer. When Vel’s thighs rested on his own, Septimus wedged a cushion under his arse. Then he held Vel open and guided himself into Vel’s body with a rumble that was also utterly surrendered . . . and steadily rising to a keen.

 

Or perhaps the keen was Vel’s. He didn’t know. Couldn’t tell anymore. Not who he was, where he left off, or where Septimus began . . . not _anything_.

 

Nothing was definite and nothing mattered, except for the unchanged sweetness and sense of completion that was having Septimus inside him, all sacred-urgent-beautiful _rightness_. Those strong, capable hands were bruising-tight on Vel’s arse and hip, possessive and claiming. His weight was pinning and anchoring . . . _perfect_.

 

Vel’s arms around Septimus’ neck wound even tighter, holding on and holding on and _holding on_ , as he sobbed and shook.

 

“Oh, _Amatus_ ,” Septimus gasped, his face pressed into the damp skin of Vel’s neck. The rest of him was absolutely still. Throbbing and imperative . . . yet still. “I love you . . . so much it frightens me. As does the thought of _losing_ you . . . and the knowledge that no matter how all-encompassing my love for you in _this_ moment, it can never compare— _never_ —to the love I _will bear_ for you in the very _next_ moment. And the next. And the next, _ad infinitum_.”

 

“ _Domine_ , please,” Vel husked out around trapped tears and his own overwhelmed heart. Despite the ache in his chest, the spot where the yawning absence had been was full-full-full . . . and joyously _alive_ , with the ember at its heart.

 

 _Vel Rilienus was alive_.

 

Septimus shivered, pressing a gentle kiss to Vel’s accelerated pulse, before shifting and bracing himself with a grunt—then quickly pulling out just enough to drive back in. They _both_ cried out, rocked to their bones. Vel’s eyes were leaking tears in spite of being squinched tight-shut, and he could feel the heat and adoration, the reverence and devoutness of Septimus’ gaze as he set up a steady, slow, _hard_ rhythm of lengthening, lingering thrusts.

 

Their bedroom was eerily silent, but for Vel’s occasional sobs of agony-ecstasy, and Septimus’ groans and grunts of pleasure and exertion. But for the wet-flat sounds of their bodies meeting and separating and meeting again, and the tired, genteel creak of their long-suffering bed.

 

The first time Vel came, shouting and clawing at Septimus’ shoulder and bicep, respectively, his body tensed and convulsed and eventually went limp, as if he’d been struck by lightning. Dazed, he simply laid there as Septimus continued to take him, with thrusts that were still hard, but not as slow. His face was once more buried in Vel’s sweaty skin, in the hollow between collar bone, neck, and shoulder. His tongue and lips tasted and mapped his lover’s flesh ceaselessly, as his own body slid against Vel’s in come and sweat. Filius Septimus _also_ seemed to be working toward a climax that was as much agony as it was ecstasy.

 

His thrusts eventually lost their length and steadiness, their rhythm and control. They grew harder, shorter, and sharper—terse and snapping. Especially as Vel began to buck up frantically and enthusiastically to meet them, for the first time since Septimus’ took him, however many minutes or hours or eons ago.

 

“Yes, _Amatus, yes_ ,” Septimus hissed between grunts and profanity and blasphemy. Between bitten-off words and _cantrips_ that tingled across Vel’s heated, sweat-sheened skin before fading and dissipating like spring mist.

 

With one arm hooked around Septimus’ neck and the other carding his hair with incongruous tenderness, Vel peppered Septimus’ damp, hot temple with kisses that were as sweet as they were salty with sweat and tears.

 

“I love you, my _domine_. I _love you_ , Filius,” he said for the first time—and the last.

 

Septimus shouted, loud and long, his hips pistoning fast and brutal, before he stilled. He choked out something that was trying to be Vel’s name, but ended up emerging as a devastated and delirious _‘matus!_ before Septimus drove himself home one last time and came like it was killing him.

 

Vel could only wonder at that as the heat and volume of Septimus' release pushed his body into a second climax, sharp and sweet and cruel, that left him clasping and clenching and clutching. Keening and gasping and whimpering, even as Septimus shook and sobbed brokenly, still trying to push his now half-hard prick ever deeper, as a last few spurts made them both hiss and gasp.

 

And when their bodies finally stilled, Vel was sated and spent. Septimus’ collapsed on top of him, leaden and limp . . . semi-satisfied, though not—from the remaining tension and rigidness in his body and prick—for long. Vel shut his eyes even tighter. Tight enough that no light got in and no more tears got out.

 

For the nonce, it was in him only to [love, and be silent](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.1.1.html).

 

He wrapped his weary, strained legs around Septimus’ hips, and his tired arms around Septimus’ neck held on tighter, nevertheless. And he clung and clung, while Septimus panted and hitched, and touched him obsessively. Clutched at him _—_ then _held on to him,_ too, with relieved strength and wondering tenderness.

 

Vel drifted deeper into his afterglow-haze for an eternal, necessary span, while Septimus sighed contentedly, and sporadically continued to claim his body with small, but definite, priming thrusts.

 

Those thrusts eventually turned into another desperate, indelicate, _intense_ session which, immediately upon completion, left them both limp, drained, and lost to the world.

 

And in the long, lonely weeks and months and _years_ that followed—in the lives and identities and _selves_ that came and went—the person _Vel Rilienus_ would eventually grow and solidify into would look back on these moments as the _last_. The last moments in which he had truly been alive . . . and the last in which he would _ever_ be truly happy.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Credit:** I borrowed some gems from Billy Shakespeare's "King Lear" (my favorite of his works, right after "Titus Andronicus"), you'll have noticed. Full credit to the Bard for these stellar, lyrical lines which, as so many of his do, illustrate all the things my characters wish to say, and far more eloquently and poetically than _I_ am able to wield the matter!
> 
> :-)


	10. . . . And the Beginning of the Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the end, and the beginning of the beginning. Usually last chapters are more succinct than this one, but then . . . I’m not your usual bug ::shrugs::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: So, this chapter is literally nothing but angst and smut. Both BDSM flavored, with emphasis on the S&M. But it also segues nicely into the second story in “Sons of the Imperium” series, which I’ll hopefully start posting by early December. _Rough_ sex. Seriously. Burgeoning, deep-seated kink, that is _not_ negotiated. Sadistic tendencies given free rein. Masochistic instincts re-discovered. Enthusiastic, but rather uninformed consent. Non-negotiated and dubiously consensual use of magic for the purposes of sexual domination, pleasure, and restraint, and eventually for healing and enforced rest. Definitely more teeth to this smut, than tenderness. The aftercare hints at the possibility of something more, however.

 

**Chapter Nine: . . . And the Beginning of the Beginning**

 

Well after velvet darkness, deep and eternal, receded and gave way to golden-warm browns that flickered with reflected light, three, newly-joined facets of a newly-whole person sighed. Then they blinked their vision clear, and stared distractedly up at wooden beams and a thatched roof not too far above them with a small, absent smile on their face.

 

In the arid, but _not yet dead_ soil of their damaged heart, they could feel—secreted and hoarded and inviolate—a tiny, precious ember, defying the gathering dark. Long-neglected and frightfully besieged, that ember nonetheless burned bright, for all that it was so very small. It was all that remained of the love two lost boys had once shared with a clever, gray-eyed, sharp-tongued, generous-hearted, _beautiful_ mage who’d himself been little more than an uncertain boy. Lost, then _regained_ , that love had grown exponentially stronger and surer than before . . . only for it to be lost a second time, and forever. For the starkly contrasted twins to discover, tempered by the agonies of times-since, a triplet. A _third_ boy. One who would grow into a bridge between two disparate natures and become the glue that held them together. _Held it all_ together.

 

At last joined, they would now unite _all of Thedas_ with them, by word and by deed, and by faith and by sword, toward one overarching Purpose. One Fate . . . or one Doom.

 

That, too, they could feel, as sure as the blood coursing through their veins.

 

 _Oh, they could feel_. . . .

 

They could feel the pulse and pull and _power_ of the Breach, distant, and semi-dormant for now. _Stable_ , but still there. _Still growing and powering Rifts_ , though far more slowly.

 

But there’d be no consolation prizes for dithering about sealing it permanently, either.

 

As if in agreement and readiness, their left arm tingled and spat barely-there fire for a few moments, before tingles and fire sank into respite, and quiescence.

 

However long that lasted.

 

Clenching their deceptively calm hand into a loose, but firm fist, they sighed again, their smile fading. It was, they knew, time to be the spearhead. To be _Mahanon Lavellan_ again, and for that facet to stand and lead with the support and strength of the other two who existed alongside of it, as needed.

 

Wakefulness _and_ wholeness nonetheless took a bit to get used to. It was some minutes of adjusting to being reunited—being more than a mere shard of some once-larger, but now-shattered and nebulous entity, with no point or purpose or place—and unexpectedly alive. Minutes were spent adjusting to breathing and feeling and simply _being_ , before they . . . before _he_ finally levered himself upright with ease that surprised and pleased him.

 

 _He_ felt hale. Strong. _Ready_.

 

After looking around the minimally furnished room in which he’d awoken—the walls, however, were decorated with cheery knick-knacks and art and such—Mahanon Lavellan finally pushed the quilt and sheets that covered him aside, and swung his bare legs out of bed.

 

He shivered as his feet touched the chilly, but clean wooden floor. Parallel to the foot of the narrow bed was a fireplace in which the fire could’ve done with some feeding. The room wasn’t cold, but neither was it as balmy as Mahanon would’ve had it.

 

“You can take the boy out of the Imperium,” he murmured to himself, his voice firm and low and sure, his throat neither sore nor rasping. That, too, pleased him, and added to his sense of certainty and well-being.

 

After smiling down at his scarred, knobby knees for a minute, Mahanon ran a hand through his clean and blood-free hair, wishing he had a thong to tie it back. Or a good pair of scissors.

 

Chuckling, he stood up, as easy as breathing. A long stretch-and-yawn later found him padding unhurriedly to the room’s lone chair and small table, to the left of the fireplace. Folded neatly on the table was a white tunic and smalls, next to which were his weapons: the holstered Dalish blades; the well-made dagger in a stiff, new leather sheath; and the serviceable sword in a battered leather sheath. On the chair, was a folded pair of breeches that matched the tunic.

 

On the floor below was a pair of sturdy, but comfortable-looking gray boots. Not fancy, but durable and comfortable. And in Mahanon’s size, undoubtedly.

 

He’d just pulled on the winter-weight breeches—ignoring the smallclothes, as ever he had—when there was a knock at the door.

 

Fastening his fly, Mahanon took a deep breath and listened for even the faintest echo or ripple in his calm, silent mind. Upon receiving none, he turned to face the bedroom entryway. The room beyond was shadowed and small, lit only by a candle, perhaps. Mahanon couldn’t see the door, but he had no fear of whom might be beyond it.

 

Of whom he was _certain_ was beyond it.

 

“Enter,” he called, his voice steady, but detached. There was an immediate creak and, a few seconds later, Solas stepped into the bedroom. He was clad in his plain, woolen winter clothes, and his staff was holstered on his back. His face was serene, austere, and unreadable. Mahanon blinked and nearly smiled, both amused and wistful. It felt as if he hadn’t seen the other man in an age, even though it’d surely been far fewer days than that. And though he wasn’t prone to lamenting the lack of any _specific_ person in his life—with a _very_ few, very _notable_ exceptions—Mahanon found that . . . he preferred the mage’s presence over his absence by a wide margin.

 

“I see you are feeling better, Hunter,” Solas said, very close to a smile himself, if a distant and aloof one. His eyes were steady and cool. Curious and impersonal. Mahanon felt a soft zephyr create slight undulations on the still pond-surface of his reforged psyche.

 

“Yes, I am, and I thank you. I’ve no doubt that’s in large part _your_ doing, and no thanks to my own,” he said, inclining his head for a shallow bow which he held a beat longer than mere thanks and politeness would warrant. When he raised his eyes, however, he caught a strangely intent flicker in Solas’ pale, distant stare. Something that made Mahanon shiver despite the relative warmth of his quarters.

 

“As you’ve said, Hunter, you cannot seal the Breach if you are dead. Never let it be said that I am unaware of my duties and responsibilities.” Solas’ gaze was veiled once again as he also bowed, elegant and sardonic.

 

“Hmm.” Mahanon shivered again as another breeze—no, a _wind_ whipped across the pond-surface of his mind, causing ripples that were practically a disturbance. He found himself prowling slowly toward Solas, holding the mage’s distantly amused gaze easily. “And as I’ve also said— _asked—is_ that what you’re doing right here and now, Solas? Merely making certain I live long enough to seal the Rifts and the Breach?”

 

“ _Merely_?” Solas chuckled briefly, but was otherwise still as Mahanon entered his personal bubble, far too close for politeness’ sake, and gazed up into the taller man’s eyes. It danced across Mahanon’s mind that Solas was not only tall for an elf, but tall even for a _shem_. Taller, even, than Septimus had been . . . though only by an inch or two. Which gave him at least four inches on Mahanon. “You qualify actions that would result in nothing less than saving Thedas from utter chaos and destruction as _merely_?”

 

“I’m qualifying the _intent behind your actions,_ regarding the saving of Thedas,” Mahanon corrected serenely, despite the tumult within him and the unified, but still disturbed waters of his pond. “I question the purity of your motives, in that I think you’re not _purely_ altruistic. _Ever_ , really . . . never mind where _I’m_ concerned.”

 

Solas blinked and his face became an utterly unreadable mask. Which gave credence to Mahanon’s suspicions concerning the mage, but that credence did little to still the pond. In fact, the churning pond seemed poised to become a whirlpool.

 

“And why, Hunter, would _your_ proximity mitigate the alleged purity of my intentions?” Solas asked in a light but frosty tone. But the half-mast lowering of Solas’ eyelids didn’t quite cover the way his gaze flicked down Mahanon’s half-clad body, then back up to his face.

 

Stepping even closer—he didn’t stop until he could feel Solas’ cool, steady breath on his forehead and the muffled heat of his rangy body through those woolen layers—he let his eyes flutter shut. Solas’ breathing hitched just enough to be noticeable and Mahanon smiled.

 

“I think you’ve answered your own question and mine,” he informed Solas quietly, his voice shaking and without subterfuge. Solas huffed with easy irony and started to speak . . . only to fall silent when Mahanon’s right hand settled on his left bicep. Mahanon’s left hand simultaneously landed, light as a sparrow, on the center of Solas’ lean, but solid sternum. He was all molten-heat and icy-bite under Mahanon’s throbbing, desperate palms.

 

“Hunter,” Solas began with stiff gravity, his right hand coming up to settle on Mahanon’s wrist. The hand was chilled from outside, yet warm underneath that surface chill. Mahanon stared at the hand on his wrist for a minute, noting the light clasp that twitched with a clear desire to be tighter. To be possessive. To be _more_. Then he met Solas’ eyes again, almost gasping at the unhidden, but unreadable intensity in them. “You are a child. An arrogant, half-mad _child_ , playing with a fire he does not understand and cannot control. One who seeks ecstasy and oblivion by a never-ending flame, with no thought or care for the consequences of unleashing such a blaze, beyond his own naïve desire to be consumed.”

 

The pond was a maelstrom, now, more wind and furor than body of water. Mahanon let the hand on Solas’ right arm and the hand on Solas’ sternum, drift down and down, even as he continued to bare himself to that cold-curious gaze. “And is that _your_ desire, then? To be the one who consumes me . . . body and mind and soul? The one who spends his fury on and in my defenseless flesh, and yet finds there is ever more of me for him to consume? The ice-cold one who nevertheless burns _bright and hot_ for want of me? Or, perhaps . . . for having _had_ me?”

 

Solas swallowed once, his appraising stare following Mahanon’s slow, steady descent. His grip on Mahanon’s wrist tightened slowly, until Mahanon’s hands paused on Solas’ other wrist and at his waistband, respectively.

 

Mahanon was almost to his knees, but still gazing up into those winter-hot eyes.

 

“You are a fool, indeed, child, if you think having a quick taste of something as pretty and ephemeral and _meaningless_ as a butterfly caught on a breeze would in any way _spend_ my . . . fury,” Solas finally said, all ice and lack of emotion, his eyes drifting to the air above and beyond Mahanon’s messy hair. By now, Mahanon was, indeed, on his knees before Solas, his square, rough hand trembling on the coarse weave of Solas’ dark, woolen trousers. But his eyes were still locked on Solas’ intent, intense face, wide with startlement and strangely keen hurt he could not hide. “And a fool to think that I would _willingly_ choose fuel such as _you_ to feed the flame that burns within me.”

 

Mahanon’s face went so numb, he couldn’t be certain he was gaping. But he knew his eyes were opened wide and unblinking. He could feel the heat of tears rolling down his cheek the instant after they trebled his view of Solas’ callous, unmoved face. “You . . . cruel, punitive, _prideful_ fuck,” he hitched out angrily, the detachment he’d awoken with shattering and the maelstrom within going from churning to raging. Even as he started to remove his hand from Solas’ waistband, the clamp on his wrist tightened and held his hand in place. Mahanon’s hand on Solas’ arm was suddenly gripped tight, as well, with Solas’ hard thumb pressed against some small, but sensitive nerve near the center of Mahanon’s palm.

 

The pressure, not increasing, but steady, left Mahanon gasping and shaking and aroused.

 

“That is _quite_ an insult, coming from a hire-sword, spy, and burgeoning religious zealot,” Solas noted with thin, absent amusement. His gaze lingered disinterestedly on the air beyond Mahanon’s head as Mahanon continued to gaze at him in sullen silence. The occasional tear still ran from his eyes, but the heat in them and the rest of his face was not from shame or embarrassment.

 

Solas’ eyes ticked back to Mahanon’s face, immediately growing wider even as his brow furrowed. Mahanon held that surprised stare even as the surprise turned to challenge and determination, and the pressure on the nerve in his right hand increased. Pain almost sharp enough to be agony swept through him, as did heat and anticipation and a . . . readiness he could not explain, but nonetheless remembered from his better days as Filius Septimus’ lover and personal monster.

 

Solas increased his pressure markedly, until Mahanon couldn’t feel his hand but for pain. It bloomed like fire-roses up to his wrist and beyond, twined with the hot flush of desire that had him all but panting as his eyes fluttered shut.

 

It was only when he moaned, needy and acquiescent, pathetic and sexual, that Solas eased the pressure with oddly ginger care, then stroked the stuttering-twitching muscles under his thumb until they stilled.

 

When Mahanon opened his wet, dazed eyes, Solas was gazing at him, semi-gobstruck. That gaze scanned Mahanon’s face in disbelief and near-dread, then took in the flush of Mahanon’s neck and chest, the quivering muscles of his abdomen, and the erection that was now impeded, but unhidden by his breeches.

 

Solas dropped both Mahanon’s hands like they were made of vipers and molten lead. But Mahanon continued to gaze up into his eyes. As ever, he couldn’t read them at all, beyond the heat and dismay that now burned out of them. That, coupled with the mage’s incontrovertible physical response—discovered when Mahanon slid his right hand down over Solas’ fly, his palm meeting wool-covered heat and hardness—was enough to make Mahanon brave. And honest.

 

“I want to be on my hands and knees, with your hand in my hair and on my throat, gripping and tugging until I’m exactly the way you want me,” he said in a voice that was both breaking and steely. “I want to wear your bruises on my arms and my thighs, my throat and my arse, like brands. To be able to touch them for days afterward, and recall these moments as if they were happening all over again. I want even the _memory_ of you taking me to make my throat and my arse sore for a day straight upon recalling this. _I want_.  . . .”

 

Mahanon trailed off, his breathing fast and hitching as his shoulders drooped. He was frowning and his brow furrowed under Solas’ rallying detachment and distance. The speed and effectiveness of their returns made Mahanon both uncertain and anxious. He wanted detachment and distance shattered, at last. For them both. Wanted them _gone_ more than anyone he’d ever killed.

 

He wanted no more secrets and no more _hiding_ , even and especially from himself. There were no masks and no words adequate to hide himself behind, anyway . . . if ever there had been.

 

It was that realization which made Mahanon smile. Then chuckle for a moment.

 

“What?” Solas demanded, sounding almost offended but not quite flustered. His brow furrowed slightly, his mouth going from almost-sneer to near-definite pout. Suddenly, the detachment and distance—Solas’ _disinterest_ —slipped enough for Mahanon to see them for what they truly were: simple, but powerful _masks and words_. Masks any Orlesian noble would covet. Words Solas powered with his own suppressed desires and instincts and nature. His _needs_.

 

Meaning the more flawless and uncaring the mask, the more desperate desire there was fueling it. The colder the _words_ , the hotter the flames that spurred them.

 

“What amuses you so, Hunter?” Solas was frowning thunderously, now, but there was lightning in his gaze. And fire.

 

“Myself. As ever, myself,” Mahanon replied wryly, shrugging and letting every layer of his own masks—pride, confidence, and a disinclination to care, or give, or even _bend_ —fall away, until he was more naked before Solas than he’d ever been for anyone since Septimus. “I’m using a weapon I’ve never been good with to win your . . . attentions: _talking_. When the strongest weapon in my arsenal is also the one I should’ve lead with: _decisive action_. I _am_ a foolish, bloody child. Or _was_. . . .

 

“If you _don’t_ want my mouth, Solas,” Mahanon warned, hoarse and breathless, holding that thawed-burning gaze with his own and willing Solas’ bewildering resolve to melt along with it, “then I suggest you stop me. _Quickly_.”

 

But Solas did _not_ stop him. Solas simply stared. Stared as Mahanon removed the cloth belt above his fly, and dropped it to the side like trash. Stared as Mahanon undid the metal hasps of Solas’ fly, then pushed the straight-legged garment most of the way down Solas’ pale, lean thighs. Stared as Mahanon pushed up the long, gray tunic and held it out of the way as he studied Solas’ cock.

 

Like the rest of him, it was long and, though not especially girthy, certainly thicker than Mahanon might have imagined. It was just as icy-pale as he expected, underneath the hectic, angry-red flush of arousal, and curved slightly, but intriguingly upward from shadow-dark, dead-straight pubic hair. The tip was wet and leaking slowly, runners of precome disappearing down the length of him into that thicket of pubic hair. Below and behind said thicket, Solas’ balls looked both heavy and tight. Red and angry.

 

Mahanon already was leaning in with a sigh, inhaling the musk-wool-herbs scent of him, as his eyes closed. His right hand continued to hold the grey tunic up out of the way, as the fingers of his left hand brushed feather-light down to Solas’s thigh. Then in and up to cup, and fondle and squeeze his balls.

 

Solas grunted, then gasped and shivered as Mahanon’s lips teased the tip of his cock with lingering kisses, then licks, then—after opening his eyes to meet Solas’ wide, incredulous gaze again—with soft, savoring suction.

 

The taste of him was as musky and herbal as his scent, salty and bitter, too. Mahanon bobbed up a bit to take more of Solas into his mouth, acknowledging that if Solas didn’t start holding up his own damned tunic, Mahanon would be limited in how far down Solas’ cock he could go.

 

For the moment, he simply focused on the job at hand, keeping his teeth shielded from Solas’ flesh—Septimus had rather enjoyed when _Vel_ had used his teeth while sucking cock, and the reverse had certainly been true, too . . . but Mahanon knew that neither of them had ever been any sort of norm—while teasing the foreskin with his lips and the slit with his tongue.

 

Solas was soundless, but for the occasional quiet huff, yet his gaze on Mahanon’s was smoldering and nearly awed. _That gaze_ spoke volumes. His hips and pelvis were utterly still, and but for the rapid rising and hardening of his cock under Mahanon’s ministrations, he gave no physical sign he was affected at all.

 

Mahanon closed his eyes and hummed briefly, attempting, even at the angle and without freeing either of his hands, to take Solas deeper into his mouth. At the same time, he squeezed Solas’ balls tighter while running his middle fingertip back and forth along the mage’s perineum.

 

He certainly did not imagine the resulting shudder of Solas’ body and the slight shuffling apart of his long legs.

 

Nor did he imagine the cool-warm hand covering his right one for a moment, before tugging up on the tunic.

 

With a brief smirk around Solas’ cock, Mahanon opened his eyes once more and wrapped his right hand around the now magenta flesh, pulling it down as he slid along its length. Until tears ran down his face and the beginnings of his throat began to twitch in preparation to gag.

 

He was patient with himself, if only because he knew impatience wouldn’t make his rusty skill-set return any faster. He hadn’t willingly given anyone an _Antivan Hello_ in more than five years . . . not since that jaunty-mercurial elf—who’d been, oddly enough, Antivan—he’d met in Rivain.

 

Mahanon had picked up rather a lot of useful and pleasant skills—and surprising kinks—from the other man before they’d parted ways.

 

One of those things had been how to ride out the gag-reflex when deep-throating. And, sure enough, within a few minutes of testing himself, Mahanon was letting Solas slide partway down his throat as easily as if he’d just done so yesterday.

 

And it _was Solas_ sliding down his throat, now. The mage’s heavy hand had settled in Mahanon’s thick, rust-colored hair, then on his head firmly. Now, he was guiding Mahanon’s head closer as his hips shifted steadily forward. It wasn’t long before both Mahanon’s hands were settled and quiescent on his thighs, awaiting orders. His own erection was bordering on agony from the restraint of his breeches, and the increasing arousal combined with the lack of purposeful friction.

 

When Mahanon’s face was pressed against Solas’ groin and pubic hair, and his eyes had closed on a steady flow of tears—when his mouth and throat were stretched, his breathing measured and shallow . . . when Mahanon didn’t fight even a _little_ against the hand holding him in place and clenching tightly in his hair, Solas sighed. A soft, near-inaudible _ahhhh_ , that was wistful and relieved.

 

And when Mahanon continued to display no resistance or even initiative—when he remained pliant, obedient, and still—Solas’ hand on his head gentled. His long fingers carded through Mahanon’s hair approvingly and wonderingly.

 

“You are so beautiful like this and you have no idea,” Solas murmured, as if still incredulous, or . . . troubled. Perhaps even angry. Mahanon listened and heard every word, but remained still and receptive until it was indicated that otherwise was desired of him. “Tempting, shining, and _innocent_ , despite suffering the cruelties and indignities of a mortal life spent among the worst of humanity. Noble and proud and _pure_ , even when happily on your knees. In another Age, among The People, you’d have been a rare and coveted jewel, indeed. Feted and courted for millennia by kings. By _gods_.”

 

With another sigh, frustrated and bitter, Solas went on, still stroking Mahanon’s hair as if to comfort them both. “But in _this_ Age . . . you are a spy and a thief and a killer. And now, a _Herald_ , it seems . . . devoid of all purpose, save service to the remnants and dregs who are all that is left of a once great race. And that _is_ a pity, whether you know and understand that, or not.”

 

Mahanon made a quiet, questioning sound, unaccountably stung by the futility in Solas’ voice. Somehow, that was even worse than the usual condescension and subtle mockery. It made Mahanon want to open his eyes and look into Solas’. He had a strong feeling that if he could read those eyes in _this moment_ , he would apprehend and understand many of the hidden things Solas kept so close.

 

But he _couldn’t_ open his eyes. He’d never quite managed the trick of deep-throating with his eyes _open_.

 

“So lovely, _Herald_.” Solas’ placed only the faintest emphasis on the unfamiliar title, but somehow forced himself a few centimeters further down Mahanon’s throat. When nothing more than a low rumble resulted, Solas chuckled, angry-sad and weary. Then withdrew his cock from Mahanon’s throat and mouth slowly, until the tip was resting on Mahanon’s wet, swollen lips. Mahanon blinked away tears then stared up into Solas’ long face. Though the masks weren’t yet back, the mage’s expression was still unreadable because there were so very many emotions vying for predominance. Mahanon couldn’t parse the speedy flicker of them all. “As irresistible a bait as any that ever trapped an old, cold, and starving wolf. So _very_ lovely . . . young and eager—naïve, in the fire and immediacy of _your_ desires and needs. _And mortal_. . . .”

 

“You say _mortal_ like it’s some sort of insult,” Mahanon growled hoarsely, around deep, uneven breaths. Even as he picked and chose which descriptors to be most offended by, he was quickly mastering his body and teasing the tip of Solas’ cock with his lips. Then teasing it with his tongue, as well, while glowering up at the other man with desire that was as sullen as it was deep. “As if mortality is the most cardinal sin a person could commit, in your eyes.”

 

“Normally,” Solas huffed, his breath and voice shaking with the loss of his iron control. The slow surrendering of it. “Normally, it would be. But in this case . . . it is a compliment. Perhaps the highest it is in me to pay you.”

 

Mahanon, too, huffed out a tired breath at such a reverential, but left-handed compliment—pretty, though it was on the face of it. On the back of his next exhale, warm and gusting on Solas’ cock, was a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You talk far too much.”

 

“Atimes, perhaps. But only to avoid saying anything of real importance or value.”

 

Sensing the imminent return of masks, Mahanon quickly took Solas in again, then slowly pulled off of his cock, scraping his teeth gently all the way to the tip. Whence he pulled off completely with a final, hard suck and lascivious lick. He was gratified by Solas’ choked off groan and by the mage grabbing at the base of his cock and clamping down. The look he then bent on Mahanon was narrowed and rueful. Smirking, Mahanon shrugged.

 

“If my face is where you wish to come, I’m entirely amenable. In fact, you can come anywhere on or in me you wish . . . _whenever_ you wish. And I . . . don’t mind you leaving marks, either. I’ve been told I wear them well,” he said plainly, with neither hubris nor humility. Solas drew in a breath that was careful and shaking.

 

“You really have _no_ idea what you are courting, little butterfly,” he murmured, his eyes closing tight, his face pinched and old for several moments. Mahanon finally sighed and sat back on his heels. On his lap, his hands—rough, tan, and weathered—were completely still. The nails were clean of dirt and blood, his hands flecked with scars, and scrapes in various stages of healing.

 

“You’re making this all _more_ difficult and confusing than it has to be, Solas. _Why_ do you have to make _everything_ more difficult and confusing than it has to be?”

 

The silence that followed these questions was briefly stunned to the point of being frantic. Mahanon looked up once more to confirm that and found Solas staring with brooding melancholy into the distance once more, his brow deeply furrowed.

 

“It is, I suppose, simply my nature,” he admitted, stiff and quiet, his wide, ungenerous mouth turned down. Mahanon studied the man’s face then shook his head.

 

“I suppose it’s _my_ perverse nature that I don’t simply steer clear of you.” With a weary, self-mocking laugh, Mahanon stood easily, but listlessly. Solas’ icy eyes ticked to Mahanon’s, bleak, but candidly desirous, too. Mahanon did not want to move away, but dared not move closer. _Could not_ move closer. “My fault that when I’m around you, I have to fight not to think about how bad I want you to. . . .”

 

“To _what_?” Solas pushed, his voice like flint as Mahanon flushed and glared down at the scant space between them.

 

“Must I spell it out?”

 

“ _Must_ you? No. But perhaps I would not take amiss hearing you do so.” Mahanon gasped as Solas’ hands gripped his biceps, high and tight. When he met that provoking, cold-hot gaze again, he swayed forward just a bit. Solas’ corresponding smile was absent, but lupine. “As stunning and stirring as you are in your determination, fortitude, and resolve, Hunter, you are never more _exquisite and heart-stopping_ than when you own that you are, in fact, nearly helpless.”

 

After a moment of flat shock, Mahanon merely snorted and shook his head again, _determined_ to pull away. Turn away. _Walk_ away. Never mind what the confused mélange that was his disorganized psyche and damaged heart wanted.

 

But Solas’ long, cruel-strong hands gripped his hips suddenly, yanking them forward so that Mahanon was flush against Solas’ body, the mage’s erection hot and hard against Mahanon’s bare abdomen. He looked up with wide, confused eyes, and Solas’ eyes . . . were narrowed and hard, but neither cold nor mocking.

 

“Never more _admirable and gleaming_ than the moments when you _overcome_ that helplessness and mortality, with a greatness and keenness of spirit that were rare even when the world was young. You put aside your fears to do what needs doing. Change what needs changing. _Say what needs saying_. And that courage in the face of your ultimate defenselessness is . . . poignant and exhilarating, to me, even more than the hammer-stroke of your physical beauty. I am . . . _not_ unmoved by your presence and nearness, Hunter,” Solas offered with obvious reluctance after nearly half a minute, then retreated into dismayed and stubborn silence, his head hanging. Mahanon groaned in frustration and exasperation, as infrequent a sound as him sobbing or chuckling.

 

“Even your compliments are complicated! Unnecessarily layered and fraught with levels of meaning! _Venhedis! Festis bei umo canavarum_! Can you not content yourself with simply saying my eyes are nice or that you like my smile? Or even my skill with a blade? Or the speed with which I can close Fade-Rifts? _Fasta vass!_ ” Mahanon swore bitterly, hopeless and self-mocking once more, as he closed his eyes. Then he laughed as he realized he was swearing oh, so _elegantly_ in Tevene, refined accent and all. Just as he’d heard _Filius Septimus_ do quite frequently, once upon a life, when annoyed.

 

The memory made Mahanon’s heart and soul ring with clarion peals from a long-silent bell. It also made the healing fissures between his facets ache and pull, like scar tissue in winter.

 

Mahanon let his shoulders sag under the weight of history and memory. Of what he wanted—would _always_ want yet never again have—and what was still possible.

 

He was so _tired_ of it all. Tired from the showdown at the Temple which—even having won it, to a degree—he couldn’t think on directly, yet. Tired of . . . _everything_. All he wanted was peace and rest and certainty. But he knew he didn’t deserve them and had no illusions that he’d ever again find them. So, he simply sighed and laughed a little, slipping fully back into the Trade tongue, which would always come more naturally than Chantry-school Tevene and the fancy swears he’d picked up from Septimus. “ _Why_ can’t you, even for a moment, be simple and straightforward?”

 

“You . . . are _affecting_ to me, Hunter,” Solas gritted in a rough, gruff voice. When Mahanon opened his eyes, the other man was glaring into the right distance again. “Is that what you wish to hear?”

 

“I _wish_ to hear what it is plain and _true_!” Mahanon exclaimed and Solas quirked a rueful smile as he reined in his gaze and scanned Mahanon’s face.

 

“The two can be mutually exclusive. The truth is not always plain and what is plainly-said is not always true. Choose one and I shall do my best to give that to you: plain-speech or truth.”

 

As ever, Mahanon did not hesitate to answer, despite the rue that seared his very bones. But for once, he chose the easy path—rather, the _less difficult_ one. As to whether it would continue be less difficult _beyond_ this moment, never mind in the long-term, that would only be clear in time.

 

“Plain-speech,” he whispered without pride or pause. Solas closed his eyes tight again for a few seconds, as if facing two roads: one that lead to elation higher than the Breach, and one that ended in disappointment deeper than the under-caves of Orzammar.

 

“Very well, then. We should not,” he said, softer and bleaker than ever. Mahanon could only gape . . . only list toward the mage, who continued to hold him, clamped-down and tight, by the hips. After more than a minute of tense, ponderous silence, those pale eyes opened and sought Mahanon’s. They were hungry and unhappy. “ _That_ is plain. _And_ a truth. Perhaps the most pertinent one I can share with you. _We should not_.”

 

“We probably shouldn’t,” Mahanon agreed hoarsely, when he couldn’t think of anything else to say in the face of that plainly-spoken truth. It wasn’t even instinct or hope, but sheer _need_ that made him press his body hard against Solas’ again. They both made similar sounds of surprise and relief at the thrilling-intense contact, despite Solas’ tunic and Mahanon’s breeches. And much of the relief—in Mahanon’s case, at least—was that Solas was still so hard.

 

And those incongruously strong hands were tighter and more . . . _possessive_ than they’d been even seconds ago.

 

He was nonetheless surprised when Solas began guiding him back toward the bed, his hands also pushing down Mahanon’s breeches. When the backs of his knees hit the foot of the bed and the breeches were nearly to mid-thigh, Solas shoved him down to the mattress, pinning him with a gaze that was intractable, piercing, and bright. His normally wintry eyes seemed to burn down into Mahanon’s.

 

“Well? Let us see the little butterfly’s brilliant colors,” Solas said, both words and tone meant to be mocking, but the heat and intensity of his gaze made a lie of that mockery, as did the impatient speed with which Solas shucked his staff and tunic. His torso was long and tapering and pale, his shoulders wide, his waist and ribs narrow, the points of his hips bony-prominent. His arms were rangy, fluid muscle, and his chest had a surprising smattering of dark hair, which trailed down to his groin, thickening just past his navel.

 

Mahanon bared his teeth in something that was probably not a smile as he ran his hand down his chest, stomach, and abdomen in a blatant tease. Solas’ gaze followed his hand, all hunger and acquisitiveness.

 

“You, of all people, should know that I’m more of a hornet, than a butterfly,” Mahanon murmured as he scooted up toward the pillows, kicking off his breeches and spreading his legs. At this invitation-challenge-impending submission, Solas’ eyes seemed to flicker and flare like a stormy horizon.

 

Smirking, Mahanon bent his left leg up and out, and stroked his hard-on tight and slow, bucking up into his own grasp. Solas gaze lingered on Mahanon’s intent stroking for nearly a minute before drifting lower, still.

 

“Butterfly, hornet, or falcon . . . you are still staring down a wolf,” Solas said finally, quiet and grim, but kicking off his boots and trousers as he held Mahanon’s unwavering stare. Then he stood poised and primed before Mahanon, bare and lean and deadly as a blade. He was all streamlined muscle and sturdy bone. Gangly, angular, and compelling.

 

And _Mahanon_ wanted to be weighed-down with, conquered by, and _replete_ of him. Wanted to feel every part of Solas against and pinning down every part of _him_. Wanted every inch of that snow-blanched skin, the long, thrumming muscles just below it, and the iron-strong bone supporting both.

 

Mahanon wanted everything within him and around him to be _silent and still_ , but for _Solas_.

 

He drew his left leg up further and let his stroking fingers wander down over his balls, then behind them, hesitating on the sensitive strip of skin immediately past them. Solas’ flickering-hot gaze followed those fingers, his pupils dilating as Mahanon stroked and teased himself. Tortured them _both_.

 

“You have no idea to whom you offer yourself, Hunter,” Solas repeated, warning and regretful in equal measures. “If you did, you would run. Or, more likely, try to kill me.”

 

“That last one isn’t off the table, yet. Not if you don’t quit driving me bloody barking with hints and cautions, when all I want is to be held down and taken. _Hard_.” Mahanon wasn’t joking, though the look Solas gave him clearly said he suspected at least a partial joke. Then Mahanon smirked, sharp and without mirth, and left off his stroking to bring his fingers to his mouth. After wetting them thoroughly with pointed sucking and licking—during which he intentionally maintained eye-contact and a near-disdainful glare that seemed to amuse Solas quite a bit—he returned them to their former task. Then gasped as he pushed them back further, pressing lightly against the puckered circumference of his entrance.

 

As had always happened when he’d been Septimus’—and to a somewhat lesser extent, for the brief time he’d spent with the Antivan elf, one _Luca Barbetto_ —Mahanon’s body automatically relaxed, eager to be taken and conquered. With a soft breath in, followed by gentle pressure from his fingers on the slow exhale, he was pushing his fingers in. . . .

 

He moaned, sprawling a bit in the mess of his sheets and quilt, his head flung back into his pillows as he angled his pelvis up for easier and deeper penetration. He closed his eyes as his teeth found purchase in his lower lip, and he hissed and laughed, then whimpered Solas’ name before licking his lips.

 

He’d barely finished the final sibilant, it seemed, before his eyes were fluttering open. The mattress had dipped under a solid weight, and he immediately felt the heat of another body between his legs and looming over him. As he focused on Solas’ stark, determined face, he automatically started to remove his fingers. But Solas was already clamping down on his wrist and doing the removing for him. The roused mage then pushed Mahanon’s spread thighs wider and moved closer, until his knees were mere inches from Mahanon’s erection.

 

When he held out his left hand to Mahanon’s face, the first two fingers extended, Mahanon’s smirk deepened and he obediently opened his mouth. Then he closed them around the fingers that settled on his tongue and set about wetting them with teasing that made Solas’ pale eyes darken as if a distant storm had finally arrived.

 

Or as if it’d _always_ been near, but carefully hidden.

 

Too soon and not soon enough, Solas was pulling his wet fingers free and a moment later, Mahanon was gasping out a breathless, desperate cry as Solas thrust those fingers into him without delay and with businesslike force. The shock of it—actual, _literal_ shock . . . Solas’ chilly-hot fingers seemed throw off continuous static shocks that thrilled and tortured _so_ vividly—made even Mahanon’s submissive and submitted body clench reflexively at first, to halt the intrusion.

 

Then to keep it.

 

Solas’ smiled, thin and patronizing, before pulling out and driving right back in, scissoring his electric-heat-cold fingers a bit before stroking in deeper and at an angle, and lingering. Mahanon cried out, wavering and surrendered, as that electric-tingle touch hit his spot dead-on. Then he went board stiff before his body gave itself over wholly, limp and collapsed in joyous acquiescence.

 

For a small eternity, he was lost in the color-swirled darkness behind his closed eyelids as Solas continued to fuck him steadily and powerfully, but not, Mahanon sensed, nearly as hard as he could. Or _would_ , when he finally replaced the clever, precise priming of his fingers for the blatant, brutal force of his cock.

 

Solas watched Mahanon wriggle and writhe, buck and beg, shudder and shimmy through his varied thrusts, and the pressure and magical force brought to bear on his touch-starved body. He hitched himself closer, wanton and shameless as he clamored for more of Solas than two fingers.

 

And even when Solas gave him a burning, aching third, it still wasn’t enough.

 

“It seems my lot and fate to be a Destroyer . . . to bring destruction and misery to beautiful, fragile things,” Solas noted, his brow furrowed and his face solemn, despite the insistent, unapologetic thrust and grind of his fingers. “To bring about irrevocable ends to innocence and sweetness.”

 

“I’m not any of those things,” Mahanon gasped out, sweating and tense and beyond all verbal sparring or niceties. “So, stop belaboring your own angst-ridden delusions and taboo kinks, and _fuck me like you mean it_.”

 

Solas froze above him and in him, blinking. Then his eyes narrowed, and he removed his fingers with a wet squelching sound . . . leaving behind an emptiness that felt yawning and numb. As Mahanon moaned pathetically, Solas grabbed his cock and muttered under his breath, even as he swept his gaze down Mahanon’s body and back up. When he smiled, it was wry and gently amused . . . and not especially kind.

 

Mahanon’s moans died as he realized he’d basically begged to be fucked without any sort of lubrication or something to ease the way for them both, beyond his own saliva.

 

The mage smiled, as if hearing Mahanon’s thoughts clearly, loomed closer, bearing his weight up on his right arm as he stroked himself with his left hand. He stared into Mahanon’s wide eyes, his own seeming ancient and alien. When Mahanon shivered and made a choked off, pleading groan—whether it was a plea to _not_ be taken dry, or a plea to be simply _be taken_ , at last and no matter what, even Mahanon couldn’t have said—Solas chuckled and looked down at Mahanon’s still-bared throat.

 

Then his left hand, heated and somehow oily, hooked under Mahanon’s right knee, pushing his leg up high. Mahanon blinked and swallowed, and kept his bent leg where Solas left it, while the mage trailed his oily fingers down and in. And then, _in_ , again, to a chorus of Mahanon’s whimpers and moans, sighs and whispered pleas for _more_.

 

“If _you_ do not wish for _me_ to show you who you _truly_ are, Hunter . . . _whom I would make of you_ ,” Solas murmured to Mahanon, negligent, impersonal, and _cold_. But the brush and press of his lips on Mahanon’s chest, just above his racing heart, was warm and almost tender. The pressure and power of his fingers in Mahanon’s body was soon replaced by the pressure and potential of the head of his cock: blunt and slippery as it slid along Mahanon’s perineum, then between his cheeks, to rest promisingly at his twitching-swollen hole. “Then I suggest _you_ _stop me_. And quickly.”

 

Shuddering, Mahanon drew in a shaking breath to speak . . . to say he knew not what, but then Solas drove into his body with one sharp, fast thrust, not stopping until he was well past that guardian muscle, and Mahanon’s startled flesh was clenching-releasing-convulsing around him.

 

Solas’ bitten back grunt and Mahanon’s raw, pained shout echoed in the small room, as did both their shallow, fast panting.

 

When Mahanon could manage it, he opened his wet eyes. Solas’ thin, intense face was right above his own, his eyes shut tight and his nostrils flared.

 

Mahanon stared up at him, dazed and aching and short of breath. At least until Solas withdrew a bit, then put his hips into another sharp thrust, this one longer and deeper. It drew a sound from Mahanon he couldn’t recall ever making before . . . weak and high and wavering.

 

“Please,” he coughed, but only because his voice refused to obey him. “ _Please_. . . .”

 

Solas chuckled, then hummed, not bothering to ask what Mahanon was pleading for. He simply pulled out and drove back in again. And again. And again, until he’d set up a rhythm that was pistoning and punishing. Powerful and perfect. He soon had both Mahanon’s legs shoved up practically to the pillows, bent and spread so high and wide they screamed for relief.

 

But Mahanon was too busy bucking and arching and contorting himself to meet each of Solas’ thrusts to notice. The sounds their bodies made with each crashing impact were slapping and wet. And whatever electricity had lingered in Solas’ fingers now seemed to be emanating from his cock, as well. Each thrust lit up and sensitized Mahanon’s needy, hot-slick channel, and devastated his entire body every time the tip of Solas’ cock so much as glanced off his spot.

 

Solas had him folded in half, pinning him with his lean, but heavy body. As Mahanon clung to the cliff-edge of a bright, frightening abyss of pleasure—desperate to fall over that edge even as he fought his ultimate descent—Solas almost seemed to gain in mass, while still staying the same size. Mahanon didn’t know if it was magic or something else, only that he couldn’t quite get adequate breaths under the weight of both their bodies.

 

He didn’t realize he was gasping until Solas’ weight suddenly eased a little and even the iron-strong hands gripping his ankles and pushing his legs ever higher and wider, eased, too.

 

Some of Mahanon’s spiraling arousal seemed to wane . . . he felt himself drifting away from that waiting abyss and groaned out a forceful: “ _Nooooo_.”

 

In the instant silence and stillness, they blinked at each other, as if briefly surfacing from a strange and eerie dream: Mahanon panting deeply and Solas barely breathing at all, just staring down at Mahanon as if figuring something out.

 

After an eternity of staring and figuring had passed, Solas gravely freed Mahanon’s left ankle and placed his hand on Mahanon’s sweaty-slick chest. Mahanon’s gaze widened as Solas’ hand traveled up slowly, deliberately, stopping only at Mahanon’s neck, where it rested with gentle consideration.

 

Then, Mahanon’s gaze glazed over as Solas’ touch turned into a clasp. Then a grasp. Then a _grip_.

 

He let out a rasping, breathless, soundless moan, smiling as his eyes fluttered shut and his body relaxed completely, all its defenses given over and forgotten for this . . . approximation of happiness.

 

Solas made a bemused sound, nearly objective in its curiosity, before his grip tightened to a clench that prevented any but the most careful and hard-won breaths from Mahanon. He pulled out and drove back in to that same unflagging rhythm, and kept going as Mahanon’s erection alternated between bouncing from the thrusts and cleaving to his body during the withdrawals.

 

Mahanon’s world was both bright and dark, his mind a simple, contented buzz. Everything was midnight velvet and fireworks behind his eyelids, his spirit free to roam as it willed while his body took what it needed and what Solas chose to give it.

 

By the time Solas’ rhythm began to falter and lose coordination—to slip into increasing power and speed, with varying lag-times between—Mahanon was barely conscious. His body neither resisted nor met Solas’ anymore, simply took relentless violation and escalating suffocation as if that was all it’d ever been meant for.

 

Finally, the build of pleasure reached a point of saturation and sustained intensity that Mahanon was no longer cogent enough to understand, let alone endure. He began to shake and seize. To hitch and gasp. To detach from himself, even as he came hard and long, and with force that was at least as much pain as it was pleasure.

 

That force was so great, it pitched Mahanon straight out of his flesh, and left him gazing down at his uncaptained body and the mage who continued to commandeer and use it.

 

He could see his own face, pale under its olive-tan complexion, indigo at and around the lips, eyes closed, limbs limp and lax, while the torso and pelvis jerked and convulsed. He could see Solas, head thrown back as his final thrusts stilled and his climax took him. His mouth opened in what might have been a roar, his eyes were wide and obscured by a strange, silvery-gray light. His hand on Mahanon’s throat was so tight, veins and muscles stood out on both.

 

Mahanon was certain that in a few moments, his windpipe would be crushed. . . .

 

Before he could decide how he felt about that likelihood, _if_ he felt anything, the light obscuring Solas’ eyes winked out and he collapsed on Mahanon’s still twitching body, his hand loosening, then falling away.

 

Mahanon’s body went still for a few moments . . . then gasped in a weak breath that trembled and wheezed. Mahanon watched his body struggle to breathe with academic interest until, after one Herculean cough, it drew in a deeper, _stronger_ breath. One that beckoned and commanded—

 

—then Mahanon was squinting open heavy, tired eyelids to blurred, spinning vision. His head ached abominably, as did the rest of his body. _Especially_ his arse and thighs. And not just because Solas—despite his drained and winded state—was still bending him in half. Still _thrusting_ , brief and stubborn and sharp.

 

It was aeons more that Solas pinned Mahanon with his solid weight . . . and possibly his magic. His hands clamped on Mahanon’s wrists so tight, the bones ground together. His body slid atop and against Mahanon’s in come and sweat—slid _in and out_ of Mahanon’s, also aided by come and whatever oil he’d magicked up—as he further spent himself at claiming what was his, if it was anyone’s. He was panting and murmuring against the perspired skin of Mahanon’s neck, interspersing words and phrases with licks and bites that tingled and shocked and burned.

 

Chuffing voiceless laughter, Mahanon turned his face slightly, and his lips pressed Solas’ damp temple.

 

“If I’d known you’d be _this_ brilliant,” Mahanon croaked, and Solas shivered at the lingering brush of Mahanon’s teasing lips. “I’d have cornered you on the way to the Temple and _begged_ for your cock until you mounted me like the animal—the _wolf_ that you are.”

 

Solas actually groaned at this, loud and long, and Mahanon chuckled. This time, his voice put in a brief appearance, if ragged and weak. He licked a runner of sweat from Solas’ heated, throbbing temple. “I would have and _still would_ let you devour me. Down to the very. Last. Bite.”

 

With a pained and rumbling shout, and three quick, final thrusts that caused flaring-dull, tearing-sharp pain that went straight to Mahanon’s core, Solas came again. His body was hotter than a funeral pyre and heavier than Andraste’s heart, and he pinned Mahanon—who was already so weak, could barely draw an adequate breath, let alone move—without consideration or mercy.

 

All Mahanon could do was take what he was given: the heat and weight, the pleasure and pain, and the scalding-wet-rush of Solas’ release deep inside him. His spent body tried to rally, to climax once more, but couldn’t quite. The agony of oversensitivity made him moan and shudder, and close his eyes at the attempt. Made him whimper and struggle and _beg_.

 

“Beautiful,” Solas husked out against Mahanon’s throat and thready-alarmed pulse, as a last few spurts and thrusts rocked both their bodies. Mahanon gasped for air and from sensation that overwhelmed and blotted him out. His eyes were wide through sightlessness and tears, and Solas’ sated-ravenous voice rasped in his ears. “You are _so beautiful_ . . . when you hurt. Gorgeous in your agony, and the ecstasy that is born of it. . . .”

 

“ _P-P-Pleeeeease_ —” Mahanon stuttered-plead, without knowing for what. His useless, helpless hands, still pinned at the wrists by Solas, clawed futilely at the quilt, at the air. Then they clenched and trembled and stilled, his consciousness winking out like a candle-flame in a besieging wind.

 

#

 

“I . . . have caused you considerable pain and damage.”

 

Mahanon didn’t know how long he’d been awake and aware, how long since he’d regained consciousness or since he’d passed out. He only knew that the room was either still-warm or Solas has thrown more logs on the formerly dying fire. His body was just on the cozy side of stifling, weighty with exhaustion, and in steady, dull pain somewhere under a ton of floating-drifting detachment. That detachment made that distant pain comforting, somehow. Reassuring.

 

Grounding _proof_ that this—all of it—hadn’t been some strange fever dream.

 

He opened his heavy, weary, achy eyelids—the only parts of him that ached worse were everything else, besides—and blinked a few painstaking times until his vision cleared. After staring up at the ceiling for a bit, he rolled his head on his pillow, to the left, and toward Solas’ quiet presence.

 

The mage was fully dressed, once more, his staff leant against the foot of the bed. He was hunched forward, his long forearms braced on his knees and his head bowed. He seemed more contemplative than devastated, despite the posture, so Mahanon cleared his throat lightly, carefully, before responding with plain-spoken honesty.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” came croak-purring out of his ridiculously sore throat. He felt far too lazy and sated and _happy_ to hide his smug contentment with such a longed-for state.

 

“Ah . . . I see. Perhaps I should have said . . . I have _unduly damaged_ you by my . . . actions.” Solas’ face turned slightly toward Mahanon, stark and pensive in the orange-gold firelight. Mahanon moved his left arm a bit toward Solas, slow and effortful. It inched painstakingly across the quilt which now covered him up to his armpits.

 

He’d been tucked in like a proper child, indeed. He snorted, too tired to be offended or irritated. Too satiated and serene to be stroppy.

 

“Not . . . _unduly_. . . .” he managed, on the back of a brief laugh that was drained, but nonetheless delighted. Surprisingly, Solas joined him for a few moments, then cast a bright, keen glance at him.

 

“Actually, yes. I think you would be . . . unpleasantly surprised if you knew the extent of the injuries that needed healing when I regained my . . . decorum.” When Mahanon’s reply to this was a crooked and smug smile, and a wistful hum, Solas sighed. “You . . . _enjoy_ discomfort. Enjoy _pain_.”

 

They weren’t questions, but Mahanon answered anyway, slowly and wincing every few words as his throat complained.

 

“I enjoy certain kinds of pain, yes. Very much so, depending on the circumstances surrounding the pain. I’d beat the arse off you and your next six incarnations if you tried to punch me in the face. But I’d let you fuck me till I couldn’t walk right whenever your prick gave a twitch.” Wince-wince-wince. “And apparently I just did.”

 

Solas sighed again, unwillingly amused and awkwardly solemn. “Hunter. . . .”

 

“You _hurt_ me. You _liked_ hurting me. _Very much so_. And _I liked_ you hurting me. In case me coming all over myself with my prick untouched wasn’t an indicator,” Mahanon added, his fingers plucking at Solas’ cloth-covered hip. Then hitching up toward his waist.

 

“Hunter—”

 

“ _Mahanon_. And I . . . would _welcome_ another such session with you. After a couple days to recover from this one, that is. You damned-near split me in two, arse first. _Walking’s_ not going to be a treat anytime soon. Not to mention I came so hard I don’t think I even _could_ come again for at least a full day. It’s been _years_ since I got it so good. So, make no mistake, Solas,” Mahanon murmured, letting his smile fade but holding that not-warm, but not-cold-either gaze. “ _I want more_.”

 

“You . . . are jarringly candid, Mahanon.” Solas looked away again, his eyes drifting down to Mahanon’s hand.

 

“I’m honest about what I want, because pretending otherwise never got me anywhere. I _want_ you pinning me to flat surfaces and shoving me into random corners. I want _your_ ache every time I sit or even walk. I want you trickling out of me and running down my thighs, as often as possible. I want . . . _you. Your_ basest nature and desires. All the things you think beneath you. _I want them_ —want you to indulge in them, and cover and color my flesh with such indulgences, Solas.”

 

The corner of Solas’ thin mouth ticked once. He blinked, slow and tired, and Mahanon noticed that his lashes were long. “I . . . am not in the habit of harming, defiling, and treating beautiful, delicate creatures— _wounded, mistreated_ creatures—so cruelly. Nor am I in the habit of deriving pleasure from the agony of the ignorant and damaged.”

 

Which was two subtle, but _quite_ different statements than: _I_ do not _harm, defile, and treat beautiful, delicate creatures so cruelly_ , and _I_ do not _derive pleasure from the agony of the ignorant and damaged_.

 

Mahanon’s brows lifted, but his ignorant and damaged psyche was serenely jubilant. Now, he _did_ tug on Solas’ trousers until the mage’s gaze drifted back to him, wary and flickering with want and torment.

 

“ _Everyone_ is ignorant and damaged. Wounded and mistreated. Such is the nature of things. And I’m neither beautiful nor delicate. As you said, I’m a hire-sword and a spy. And a Hunter. And _yes_ , a believer in an overarching struggle, meaningful direction, and collective Fate, though I have no interest in the faiths of _either_ of my forebears. No interests in Andraste’s sacrifices or Andruil’s favor. I know what I am, what I believe, and what I want. What I _need_. And I have keen instincts for people who can meet those needs.” Mahanon’s brows lifted and he smiled peaceably. Solas was the one who lingered over a reply, this time. “Or am I mistaken about our contrasting and complimentary needs? Do you _not_ enjoy being above me? Overpowering me? Hurting me, and wringing every ounce of pleasure from my pain and from _me_ to be had?”

 

“It is . . . possible that I enjoy those things far too much for either of our health or safety, Mahanon,” Solas said with unadorned and unexpected honesty. Between that and the burr he accorded Mahanon’s name, Mahanon shivered and flushed. The reactions surely didn’t go unnoticed by Solas, as evidenced by another deep sigh.

 

“If you wish it,” Mahanon offered, his gaze steady and open and laid-bare. “If you wish, I’ll wear your marks. Yours, and no one else’s.”

 

Solas looked away once more, but not before Mahanon caught the glimmer of rapacious interest in his eyes, which already seemed to flicker in the cheerful firelight. “Hunter . . . _Mahanon_ , that is . . . a generous offer, but one I fear I must decline for both our sakes’.”

 

Even as he said it, however, Solas was shifting back slightly, his hip pressing into Mahanon’s touch light.

 

“And I’m afraid I must _insist_ , for both our sakes’.”

 

“You have no idea,” Solas began, and Mahanon silenced him by dragging his fingertips down and across to Solas’ arse. Those pale, widened eyes met his again, conflicted and almost pleading. But Mahanon was all compassion and no mercy.

 

“You could literally bend me over the table, or pin me against any of these walls, and have me _again_ , if you wanted. _Right now_ , were you inclined and ready. And I have a feeling,” Mahanon noted, trailing his heavy but admiring hand up to the small of Solas’ back. He could feel powerful and infernal heat from a gaze that had forgotten to be icy and aloof. But he kept his own gaze on his long, blunt-tipped fingers. “I have a feeling that _readiness_ is not a problem, for you. In which case, we’re well-matched. Or will be, soon as I get used to being fucked so vigorously on a regular basis, once more.”

 

Solas closed his eyes and turned half-toward Mahanon, his bent leg resting on the bed. As Mahanon continued to trail his fingers up and down Solas’ scratchy, woolen tunic, the mage made a terse, grunting sound. Before Mahanon could react, Solas was leaning over his prone form, arms braced to either side of Mahanon’s head on those long, strong hands. His face was above Mahanon’s at an angle, his eyes wide and urgent. But he nonetheless leaned in a bit closer with a soft, near-breathless huff.

 

For a few moments, Solas lingered outside of the nascent kiss—the mere idea of which shook Mahanon more than nearly being fucked to death had—before he sighed, closed his eyes briefly, then sat up once more. Decisively.

 

Rather, he started to, paused, then darted back in, quick and startling, to press his nose against the pulse in Mahanon’s throat, nuzzling and nipping like a wolf scenting a potential mate. Mahanon held perfectly still, and settled in to watch restful colors lazily swirl and swoop on the backs of his eyelids.

 

But just as quick as it’d begun, it was done, and Solas was moving away. Standing, from the feel. Mahanon heard the whisper of Solas’ rough, dry palm along his staff, but also felt that winter-hot gaze like greedy caresses and possessive marking all over his covered body.

 

He knew that if he opened his eyes and looked down, he would find that Solas was visibly aroused.

 

Even though the thought was tiring—made him yawn and shiver—it also made him grin, and his balls tingle and ache. “Whenever you want me— _whenever_ —you have only to take me. No discussion, no wasted words or clever banter necessary . . . just _take me_ and make me _yours_.”

 

“That is . . . an unwise offer for you to make, Hunter. And t’would be even more unwise for me to accept.” Solas’ voice was rigid with restraint that sounded like rue . . . like crumbling.

 

“Yes. Very unwise.” Mahanon hummed and smiled, then turned his head to his right, into the pillow and away from the fire’s heat. Now, his fatigued, overused, and overheated flesh needed more of coolness and stillness. “Regardless . . . if I were to, in good faith, leave my door unlatched next evening, and dawn thereafter found the sun rising on my spurned hospitality and dashed hopes, that would be _worse_ than unwise. It would be _sad_. And a waste.”

 

There was silence for nearly a minute before Solas’ voice, now composed and mildly interested—but somehow brittle and given-in, underneath—sounded with its usual lofty firmness. “While I cannot commend the decision to leave your door unlatched of an evening, Hunter, it is certainly your choice to do as you will. However, I _note_ that should someone feel such a need to see you, as would bring them to your door after sunset . . . _such a person_ would not allow the securing of your door against _unwelcome_ intruders to prevent them from taking full advantage of your . . . hospitality. Indeed, were they so easily stymied by such, they would not be _worthy_ of either company or hospitality, in the first place.”

 

Mahanon’s smile widened. And that winter-hot gaze was once more as palpable as admiring palms down his body, and as heavy as a long, lean body subduing and pinning his own. As nips all along his bruised throat and neck; as bruises marching up his spread thighs, and the blunt-hot pressure of a ruthlessly masterful cock poised against the slick, puffy-abused entrance to his body.

 

With a rabbit’s instinct for sensing a hungering wolf nearby, Mahanon knew Solas was still hard. Still ready. Still _ravenous_.

 

And he was considering staying.

 

The tingling ache in his balls suggested that even though his body wasn’t quite ready to be re-devoured—not just yet—that wouldn’t stop Mahanon from giving his aching, wrecked self over to the mage wholly. Such submission was as branded in his bones as the Imperium that had shaped him.

 

 _Stay_ , he nearly asked, nearly opened his eyes to entreat with every molecule of desire and humility and need within him. But before he could, Solas sighed once more.

 

“Rest, now. There are things I must see to, Hunter. _Herald_. Until . . . later,” he said gravely, and was gone moments after. The only sign of his departure from the bedroom was the sudden, lonely chill that took Mahanon with a deep shudder and all-over frisson.

 

“Tomorrow, I shall latch my door, but hope for the best, as ever,” he promised around a yawn as his entire body grew immediately heavier and heavier with suspicious timing. The dark of his closed eyes shifted from light-leavened red-black, to four a.m. void. And awareness— _consciousness_ —was speedily muted even as he wondered at Solas calling him _Herald_. . . .

 

Nonetheless, Mahanon was deeply asleep before the front door to his cozy, two-room quarters opened. And dreaming by the time it shut and latched securely, without a hand being laid upon it.

 

END

 

**Thank you so much for reading and for supporting this crazy-ass fic. Stay tuned for the next fic in the "Sons of the Imperium" series, “The Gathering Storm.” Which I should probably title, “When Mahanon Met Dorian (Again).” Love triangle, lots of smut and angst, all that good stuff. LOTS. Coming to a Works near you ~~before Yule~~ in early January 2018. Real Life, yo.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks <3 And more in the New Year.

**Author's Note:**

> DA Kink Meme Prompt: [ What about an Inquisitor who is Tevinter? What would everyone think?? What would Mother Giselle think??? I've been reading about an Avvar!Inquisitor (which is really good and well written, it's called "Tell it from The Mountain" over in AO3) so I thought, “Hey! Why not a Tevinter? Everyone's gonna go batshit crazy!” +++ Not any Tevinter, but Rilienus? You know, the guy Cole talked about when he saw inside Dorian? Cole: “Rilienus, skin tan like fine whiskey, cheekbones shaded, lips curl when he smiles. He would have said yes.”* Also, yes to what? Were they friends and Dorian wanted more? Were they lovers and Dorian wanted to ask them to escape together? A!A's Choice. This is all just a maybe. +++ Maybe not necessarily a noble!Tevinter? Maybe a worker? Although a noble would give people more to talk about... especially if a Magister. +++ Obviously human and mage. Male if Dorian is the Love Interest. If it's any other, then any gender. *See in the Dorian dialogue with Cole.](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/93509.html?thread=365441605)
> 
> (http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dorian_Pavus/Dialogue#Dorian_and_Cole)
> 
> [beetle on the Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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